


Don't Stretch Your Luck

by WackyGoofball



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Sports, Alternate Universe - Yoga, Awkward Romance, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, I also have zero clues about kale smoothies, JB banter, Jaime as a yoga teacher - Brienne as his apprentice, Just About Everything, Oh and did I mention JB banter?, Romance, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?, Yoga, it is known, so many tags!, so you have been warned, this is mere internet research yoga - at best, though I have no clue about yoga
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-08 15:22:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11084400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WackyGoofball/pseuds/WackyGoofball
Summary: When Brienne decided to see a doctor about her backpains, she hoped that he would come up with a solid treatment plan and be done.Little did she know.Because his recommendation for her is not at all what the young woman from Tarth had in mind.Particularly because it involves an awkward reunion with a certain someone she met some time ago, under completely different circumstances, and on what she considers not necessarily friendly terms.And that person is supposed to be her new trainer? In that sports activity of all sports activities? What?I suck at summaries. Bye.





	1. Sticky Note

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aerest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aerest/gifts).



> Hello everyone! 
> 
> Thanks for looking into this story. It started more as a writing practice to keep pushing through the Mother of Writer’s Blocks that prevents me from most of all substantial work regarding my multi-chapter works, all of which, I know, are waiting for an update. 
> 
> As I said in the tags, I know shit about yoga. So please, don’t expect this to be very accurate. I did some research, but I am no yogi. So I wouldn’t recommend you try these at home, LOL. 
> 
> As always, I go unbeta’d, as a non-native. All mistakes are mine, safe for those I tend to blame my English teachers for. 
> 
> I gift this to Aerest who was so kind to point out to me that there is a way for kale smoothies to taste passable enough, and because Aerest is fab. I hope you’ll like it, dear, even if… I know about as much about yoga as Jon Snow knows about anything. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you’ll enjoy. 
> 
> Much love! ♥♥♥

“Uhm, I beg your pardon, but could you please repeat that another time? I fear I didn’t quite catch that.”

“Yoga.”

Brienne bites her lower lip, sitting up a little straighter on the uncomfortable wooden office chair. Maybe she shouldn’t have listened to Margaery when she offered her advice over coffee and gossip Brienne _never_ had any interest in anyway.

She recommended this private practice to her after Brienne asked her if she knew any clinics around King’s Landing, insisting to the tall woman’s hesitant questioning that it enjoys the best of reputations, and that while Margaery hasn’t been there yet, she only heard the best from her friends, urging Brienne to “give it a try!”

And Brienne, perhaps rather foolishly in the retrospective, dared to trust the young woman’s judgment, since she hadn’t found herself a new physician of trust ever since she relocated to King’s Landing. Margaery knows all and sundry, after all, clearly taking after her grandmother Olenna.

So why not the all and sundry of the health department, right? Well, that was what Brienne told herself when she followed Margaery’s advice, checked out the _admittedly_ fancy website full of bright colors, well-arranged photographs of the practice and the staff, and made an appointment soon thereafter.

The fact that the practice even had good reviews on _Master of Whisperers_ , an internet website hosted by Varys, allowing for reviews on all kinds of things, reaching from taverns over ferries across the Narrow Sea to hospital and private practices, added to her reassurance that this was the right choice.

_Though seemingly, it’s not._

Because sitting in the doctor’s office now makes Brienne want to take a leave for it, _right now_. Through the window if she must.

She has had the displeasure of encountering some many weird doctors over the years, but Brienne cannot say that any of them managed to catch her off-guard as much as this seasoned, tall, tanned man with gray hairs and rectangular glasses did just now.

“You mean to tell me that the only treatment option for my backpains is… _yoga_?” Brienne asks, still not quite believing what she just heard, or rather, still daring to hope that she misheard.

She suffered through that man with beer-gut probing at her aching back for ten minutes, repeatedly asking her if that spot hurt which she had said “yes” to each time, only for him to probe at just that spot again and repeat the process to the point that Brienne was short before throwing a tantrum.  

Brienne even suffered through the embarrassment of having to undress in front of that guy – because he is a professional, and _surely_ not interested in her by any means, _no one really is_ – but Brienne has that embarrassment so deeply ingrained into her system that she still breaks out in cold sweat when she is getting told to strip and lie down on the stomach at any doctor’s practice.

_And that guy was not at all helping it!_

And all that probing, which stood at the end of a strenuous journey full of waiting in stuffy, sticky waiting rooms, x-rays, blood tests with a pretty and sweet if inexperienced nurse who seemingly thought Brienne’s arm was a pincushion… _for nothing_. _Or no, for that **grand** piece of advice right there. Hey, how about we do yoga instead of… treating your problems properly!  _

“It’s not the only one, but it’d be a good start. I have had quite a few patients who managed to reduce pain through specific yoga exercises. I would rather recommend you to try out alternative ways of treatment before considering medication or surgery, knowing the risks and side effects coming with either one.”

Brienne licks her lips. Maybe she should have waited with the doctor’s appointment until next vacation back on Tarth. That physician knows her at least. While he isn’t really any less annoying, he knows her and her body by now, and doesn’t get _funny_ with her anymore. She can deal with that guy. Brienne is not yet sure if she is ready to deal with the man right in front of her, however.

But then again, her back was _killing_ her lately, and Brienne doesn’t know if she would make it through the flight over to Tarth in one piece. So perhaps she will have to. Which, apparently, seems to be the case for any physician she met up until now – she just suffers through them all.

“Well, it may apply to most people that they are untrained and that this leads to back pains, I am aware, but I can assure you that this is not the case for me. I am a very athletic person,” Brienne goes on to explain, though she can’t help but disappointed that he doesn’t seem to gather that from her reports. “I go jogging, I go to the gym for weight training and martial arts, I actually work exactly on building up back muscles to help gain more support for my back. I do fencing, swimming… like… with all due respect, a lack of training will hardly be the main problem here.”

“Oh no, most definitely not. But what I noticed is that you are rather… _stiff_ ,” the doctor tells her, waving his blue pen around as though it was a magical wand, as it appears.

 _Well, **of course** I am, as hard as you kept probing at the one spot that hurts_! Brienne wants to retort, but does not. She has manners, after all, yet another thing deeply ingrained into her system. She doesn’t yell at people, even less at doctors.

_Unless they deserve it, obviously._

Not that this helps her frustration with those people in any significant way, but Brienne has always been an advocate of good manners, no matter her wish to strangle some many people. No matter how old-fashioned that may be, she actually gives something on chivalry, the old codices, and that includes being polite to people, even when you would rather not.

Brienne runs her tongue over her lips, clenching and unclenching her wrists underneath the table as she goes on to ask, “Is it possible that you elaborated on this a bit further, please?”

The doctor gives her an appreciative sort of smile that has her convinced that he has no clue that Brienne is apparently very frustrated right at this moment and would rather not have him elaborate on much of anything.

Thus, he goes on to explain, swinging his magical pen around in-tune with his speaking rhythm, “You have a lot of tension in your body, to say the least. And that is what makes me believe that yoga will work miracles for you. Yoga will help you ease the tension that seems to only increase your backpains, I believe.”

_Miracles._

The last time someone told Brienne that he could work miracles was when that certain someone wanted to convince her that he was exceptional in bed and would “rock her world.” Needless to mention that this guy earned himself anything but a cozy time – if at all, Brienne rocked his world as she shattered it. There are boundaries even to her patience and politeness after all.

“There is no doubt that you suffer through them thanks to your height,” the doctor adds.

Brienne bites the inside of her cheek hard enough to get a faint taste of copper.

_Oh, so at least you recognize that I have these pains that make me want to cry at least once a day, the only thing preventing me from it being that I look even uglier when I cry! **Thank you**! _

Brienne rolls her shoulders. She can already feel a new wave of pain about to crush – and she tends to blame that doctor for it right at this moment.

“As I gathered from your medical records, you already had them as a teenager, following your first growth spurt,” the physician with graying hair goes on to say, lazily turning _the same damned page_ of the folder containing her medical records back and forth. As though that made it appear like he read that report in all earnest prior to shaking hands with her.

“Yes, exactly. I have had medication, which did not work at all too greatly for me. So I started to do more sports,” Brienne says, trying her best to keep her voice even.

_As it says in the report… why am I having small-talk instead of discussing how you think yoga is the solution to all of my problems?!_

“One could almost say _excessively_ so,” the doctor continues, making Brienne frown at him. “I mean no offense, Miss Tarth, but that is quite an ambitious schedule for a young woman like you.”

“I have been in contact with my doctor on Tarth the whole time, and he said it’d be fine,” she insists.

“Yeah, no, I am just surprised that a young woman is _so_ extreme about sports. Aren’t you afraid to turn into a fully fleshed bodybuilder at that rate?” the physician laughs, starting to turn the page over and over again to the point that Brienne wants to snatch the thing from him and never give it back.

_Or smack him with it._

“I wanted to get rid of the pains, and for a time, sports helped,” Brienne replies, barely moving her lips apart as she speaks. “And as I said, I did so in accordance with my doctor back home. He even encouraged me to work on my fitness particularly in those areas.”

Deep down, Brienne knows that she shouldn’t even get that upset about it as she does right at this moment. Deep down she knows that it's not worth it, that he is not worth it, that his comments aren’t.

It’s not like she didn’t have it before that doctors were to busy glancing at the folders before them, their computers, or make the same comments and jokes every doctor seems to learn on some symposium or so.

Nevertheless, it drives Brienne nearly _insane_ that she always gets the same comments, about how queer it is how excessive she is about sport, _as a woman_ , or was as a young girl, the implication clearly being that she is something queer, something that doesn’t fit, doesn’t belong.

As though their blinking and glancing upon her entering the room was not proof enough of that already.

As to sports, Brienne hoped that this would solve her problems without the need of having physicians prod at her for nothing. And for a time, it really seemed like the cure. The waves of pain were gone, and Brienne started to feel confident in her moves, once she learned even better to ignore people’s comments and cutting glances.

However, then she started at the office. That in turn meant office chairs, sitting in meetings for long periods of time, and having to reduce sports to after work or the weekends. And suddenly, the waves were back, leaving Brienne wanting to _scream_ as they pulled her underwater.

 _Maybe I should have pursued a professional fencing career after all instead of joining business management. Perhaps that would have saved me from the backpains after all_ , Brienne thinks to herself.

“Yeah, getting back pains thanks to office routines is far from uncommon. You’d have _no idea_ how many of my patients suffer from _just_ those conditions.”

Brienne offers a crooked smile, nodding her head.

She probably could make a _good_ guess, even, because Brienne read up on recent studies concerning the effects of office routines on backpains in some articles she found online prior to this appointment.

Brienne rather walks into a situation prepared, after all.

“And for them, yoga does the trick?” she asks, trying her best to keep that edge of sarcasm out of her voice.

“Not all, but for some, it works out _really_ great. And for you, it wouldn’t be normal yoga. It’d be _specialized_ yoga.”

“The difference being what exactly?”

“The medical yoga training is tailored to specific needs. So you would get help to ease particularly those areas of the body that keep giving you trouble. I don't mean to say that this will be the ultimate cure, but it’s something we should perhaps try out first before taking _more drastic_ measurements. I assume you don’t want to be back on medication, or Gods may help, surgery, so long you can help it.”

“Most definitely. I would rather do without,” Brienne agrees.

_Finally we are on the same page on **something**!_

“I mean, if you cannot bring yourself to consider it, we may also go with another therapy option. I just _really_ think this would work greatly for you, Ms. Tarth.”

Brienne sucks her lower lip into her mouth.  

Just because she is annoyed at the man in front of her should not override common sense, right? Maybe there is something true to that evaluation anyway, even if his meager attempt of adding gravitas to his words with the swing of his blue pen _really_ doesn’t do him any favors.

“So… is there anyone you can recommend?” Brienne sighs at last, not quite believing herself to give in like that, because if there is one thing true about her, then it is that Brienne of Tarth does not yield.

The doctor beams at her, seemingly _overly_ satisfied for having convinced her of his plans at last. “Yes, in fact. An expert, one could say. Helped many of my patients to work through their pains, particularly backpains.”

Brienne cocks an eyebrow at him.

_An expert in yoga? Right._

“I will give you the address for the gym along with the phone number. You can either join the group sessions or schedule single sessions. Whichever you prefer.”

Brienne grimaces pensively. Neither option sounds very promising in her humble opinion.

Group sessions mean that she will have to do gymnastics of some sort in front of other people who are likely far better at this, and _look_ far better in sports clothes.

Being one-on-one with some yoga trainer seems no more promising, however. If it’s one of those celery-eating chicks who wear tight neon-colored sportswear on any occasion with bouncy ponytail and _bubbly_ personality, Brienne is sure that not a single muscle is going to ease under that lady’s ministration, no matter her efforts, _now genuine or not_.

And if it is one of those laid-back, weed-smoking, shaggy-haired yogis with psychedelic patterned harem pants, Brienne is _most_ certain that she will back out instantly and never come back to that gym in a lifetime.

She draws the line at psychedelic patterned harem pants.

“I will… think about it, thank you,” Brienne concludes. The doctor gives her a bright smile as he starts to scribble the data in question on a sticky note, seemingly happy to have managed to convince her. Which leaves Brienne wondering if he is going to parade himself while chatting with his colleagues at the practice, sipping coffee from his “Best Doctor in the World” mug set up on the table for all to see.

She wouldn’t put it past him, that’s for sure.

“Here you go,” the gray-haired man says as he hands the note over to her. Brienne takes it, offering a crooked smile. “Thank you very much for the… consultation. I will let you know how I decided.”

She gathers her bag and last shreds of whatever dignity remained, getting ready to leave.

“Then I will see you around, Miss Tarth. Hopefully a bit less tensed,” the doctor tells her, winking at Brienne, expecting her to laugh at his little joke (not that she didn’t hear it before, _like, ten times_ ). She curls her lips upwards in what Brienne hopes to come across as a passable enough smile so not to offend the man.

Brienne gets up from the chair giving her even more backpains at once, though she ignores it all in favor of getting the Seven Hells out of this place, hurriedly taking the man’s sweaty hand for a quick shake before proceeding towards the door.

“I will see you around, then.”

 _Maybe. Maybe not. Probably not_ , Brienne thinks to herself.

“I will let you know how I have decided. Have a nice day, Doctor.”

“You, too, Ms. Tarth.”

 _So much to that_ , Brienne thinks to herself as she leaves the room.

“Now, who is next?” she can hear the doctor’s voice echo as Brienne whooshes down the narrow hallway as fast as possible.

Only once she is in the comforting space of the parking lot does Brienne dare to let out a breath she didn’t even know she was holding.

The blonde-haired woman leans against the wall outside, fighting a brief if intense duel with her coat, which will not properly loop over that stupid handbag she brought along because she thought it’d look a little better than the backpack she normally uses.

Because Brienne wanted to leave a good first impression on her new doctor, acting more like a lady than a mannish woman who tends to be confused for a guy most of her time.

 _Foolishly so, as it appears_ , Brienne thinks to herself, shaking her head. At last, her jacket stays put, and she gets a chance to dedicate her time to the sticky note the doctor gave to her.

_A sticky note. That surely speaks for conviction._

Brienne bites her lower lip as her blue eyes dance over the information on the faintly yellow slip of paper. She frowns, reads again. Her frown deepens.

_That can’t be._

She reads again. If possible, her frown deepens even more. But that is what it says.

_But… that really can’t be. That’s simply not possible._

Brienne blinks repeatedly as she fidgets around with the sticky note, which now sticks to her fingers, _stupid thing_. The blonde woman shakes her hand repeatedly as she fishes out her phone from her blazer’s inner pocket with the other hand.  

_Research time!_

Because there is no way in the Seven Hells that this person is supposed her trainer. That is a thing of impossibility. The doctor must have made a mistake. He made quite a few in her humble opinion already, so why not write down the wrong name on a sticky note, right?

_There just is no way. No. Way._

Brienne’s fingers dance over the surface of her phone, waiting for the results to pop up on the small screen. Gladly, the internet connection is not the almost bad around there, because the tension is almost unbearable to the point that her back is starting to play xylophone up and down her spine.

And if it is possible, her frown only deepens one more time as the results pop up on her _Tobho Mottorola_.

_Maybe there is a way after all?!_

Brienne shakes her head, checks the screen again, swipes up and down, checks another website.

The way still doesn’t disappear. It only keeps cementing as part of reality. Her reality. 

Brienne stuffs the phone away, pushing away from the wall with a small groan escaping her lips.

She will have to do more _thorough_ research, as it appears, within the comfort of her apartment, however.

She has to find a way to debunk that ridiculous theory.

She has to.

Even if that means to read up on yoga after all.

Because even if there seems to be a way now, Brienne is not yet daring to believe that the name on the sticky note is meant to refer to her yoga trainer.

She knows that man, after all, and last time she checked, he was no yogi.

Which leaves three options: One, the internet is wrong, two, the doctor is referring to the right person though he used a wrong name, or three, what seems perhaps even more impossible than the internet being wrong, this is all true.

He, a yoga trainer.

Potentially her yoga trainer. And all Brienne wanted was a simple treatment plan for her backpains. That's all she's been asking for. 

And now this.

_Just what did I get myself into?_

_And far more importantly, how do I get out of it again?_


	2. Kale Smoothie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne goes to the gym to get a first impression of the place and the people. 
> 
> And particularly the yoga trainer her newly found doctor assigned to her. 
> 
> Though, as it appears, she is in for quite a few surprises. 
> 
> And kale smoothie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!
> 
> Thanks for sticking around this yoga fic from a person who knows shit about yoga. Also, as Aerest let me know, there are ways of making kale smoothie not disgusting, like adding cocoa, but no one told the people at the gym, so theirs is plain as day *blegh*. 
> 
> In any case, I hope you'll enjoy the next installment. 
> 
> Much love! ♥♥♥

Brienne still cannot believe that she followed through going to the gym her new (possibly soon enough bygone) doctor sent her to, _for some yoga therapy… therapy yoga… medical yoga… whatever you want to call it now._

However, another sleepless night on her stomach after typing her fingers sore in search for truths in a jungle full of ads, FAQs, and pixelated images taught Brienne that this situation needs relief, _fast_ , no matter her hesitation about the big issue she has with yoga in general.

Thus, by sun’s rise, because Brienne didn’t get more rest than some nap between 4.30 and 5.00, she called the number her doctor gave her on that bloody sticky note now bound to her office table at home, mocking her even from a distance.

A nice young woman with a pleasant, calming voice answered the phone and told Brienne that she could have a single meeting with their yoga trainer, “absolutely no bother.” Though Brienne can’t really say that she was very thrilled about getting an appointment so fast. A tiny part of her dared to hope that it’d take some time. Those fancy sports clubs and special trainings usually require you to get an appointment three months before ever getting a chance of visiting the place.

Particularly King’s Landing, so Brienne learned ever since moving here, is full of those fancy places with limited access, if only to give themselves just that air of being something special.

_It’s all about appearance around here._

“While the group courses are always well received, the private meetings are not too high in number. Most people feel more comfortable in the group,” the woman informed her over the phone. “So, when do you have time?”

Brienne scheduled the first best appointment that fitted into her work program. She reckoned that going for the evening hours may serve the overall purpose of not having too many people around to see her. Because Brienne _most definitely_ wouldn’t want words to spread anywhere that she is taking private yoga lessons.

Or more precisely, she rather wouldn’t want anyone to know that she even has a private life in the first place. Brienne rather keeps her private life, however boring it is to most other people, private, to herself, where no one can see it, or stomp on it.

However, she took the liberty to come to the gym a little earlier, after checking out the yoga lesson plan that was uploaded to the gym’s website, _thankfully_ , which conveniently made the differentiation between group and single sessions for her to know what is going on when.

Because ever since Brienne received that yellowish sheet of paper from her doctor, she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe what was scribbled on that note in bold, blue letters.

Because it said “Jaime Lannister” as the recommended trainer, along with the gym’s phone number.

_And that **must** be a mistake. _

Or rather, there have to be two Jaime Lannisters, _no way around it_. Maybe some distant cousin whose first name also happens to be Jaime.

_That happens, right? It’s not like there is only one Jaime Lannister in the entire world._

When she first read it, a part of her thought that maybe it _could_ be him, but now she stepped back down from the theory, or at least wants to believe that it isn’t true with a kind of desperation that surprises even Brienne herself.

Her research, even at the comfort of her own home, didn’t verify or prove the information wrong. While the name appeared on the gym’s website, it didn’t link to the man she knows from a while back. So there is still a possibility that this is not the worst case scenario.

_Yet anyways. Maybe the worst case scenario is a stoned yogi with psychedelic-patterned harem pants after all._

As of now, Brienne wants to tend in the direction of someone else sharing the _name Jaime Lannister_ , who, apparently, gives yoga lessons at this gym on the outskirt of King’s Landing.

She couldn’t find a picture of him on the gym’s website, which added to her confusion beside the one that comes with sleep deprivation. Her research only ever gave her the name “Jaime Lannister” on the list of trainers, no more. Which is odd enough, because other trainers posed for the group photo on the staff page, just like there were single pictures and short CVs of most of the trainers the gym seems to employ.

But Jaime Lannister was only ever there in name.

So now, here she sits by the “bar slash reception desk,” according to the red-haired woman whom she spoke to over the phone, as she showed her around, even though Brienne didn’t _really_ ask for it. Thus, before she could object, she was seated by the “bar slash reception desk,” talked through the menu, and bound to order something, if only to be polite.

Which earned her some super energy smoothie with kale (the person who ever came up with putting so much kale into drinks should be burned by dragonfire in her humble opinion), which she occasionally sips from only to cringe as she keeps stealing glances at the group room across the bar.

After Brienne had settled down, it didn’t take long until twenty-seven women, or so she counted, waltzed their way over to the room. All were good-looking, young, giggly, bubbly, in very colorful sports attires of varying degrees of modesty, and varying degrees of squealing as they entered, seemingly _very_ much enchanted by the yoga trainer waiting for them inside.

Brienne is indeed very much convinced that at least half of the women are _only_ there to flirt with the trainer.

The _beehive_ , as Brienne now refers to the group of yoga-pants wearing hotties, eventually starts to swarm out of the room, full of giggles and sweet smiles.

And that is when she catches sight of the trainer, who is busily bowing his head at them, the flats of his hands pressed together as he repeatedly says “ _Namaste_ ,” which the girls mimic with ever the more giggles and shy-not-shy smiles. And that feeds right into any fantasy Brienne’s ever had about how those yoga lessons go down.

She is _fairly_ sure that this one chick in the _extra_ tight attire, bearing a neon-pink label of “Hot Mess” spread _right_ on the bosom, leans forward _only_ just to display her voluptuous bust. Just like her folded hands in the back seemingly have no other purpose but to draw even more attention to the hot mess of her boobs, and coming across as _innocent-not-innocent_.

Brienne cranes her neck, hoping to catch a full glimpse of the man who is still surrounded by _the hive_. She can only see that he _gladly_ wears no psychedelic-patterned pants, _thank the Seven_ , but normal sports trousers coupled with a plain black muscle shirt… _and no shoes, apparently_.

At last, the _beehive_ starts to disperse. Brienne twirls around on the bar stool to face towards the crowd now roaming towards the changing rooms under much chattering, giggling, and running their manicured fingers through their luxurious hair either styled to perfect locks, which is ridiculous to Brienne, considering that they are supposedly there to do sports, or bouncy ponytails.

However, now that the man’s face is within Brienne’s vision, she can do nothing but twist back around on the chair abruptly, sucking as much of the disgusting kale smoothie through the broad straw as she can, despite her gag reflex being short before kicking in.

_There **is** a way after all! _

_Which raises the question… how do you discreetly disappear from a gym at once_? she thinks to herself frantically as her mind races through options of “urgent phone call” to “dead grandma” to “family emergency” to “my dog ate my yoga pants,” none of which prove to be a tangible alternative.

But maybe he didn’t see her yet. So maybe, _just maybe_ , if Brienne manages to make it back to the receptionist who just disappeared into the back, to tell her that she had a change of mind and… would simply deal with the backpains for the rest of her life or shoot herself to the moon with that wonderful medication she took as a teenager… then Brienne could escape this situation.

_Or I tell her something else. **Anything** else. I just have to get the Seven Hells out of here! _

However, that is when she senses a presence behind her. Brienne can feel the fine hairs in her neck standing up straight, her shoulders setting so rigidly that now even her upper back hurts now.

“Now, that’s what I’d call a surprise,” his voice rings out. Brienne turns slowly on the chair, the greenish smoothie still in hand. “Miss Tarth!”

Brienne is ever the more surprised that he remembers her face, let alone her name. To her understanding, she is very much accustomed to leaving either no impression or bad impressions. Brienne tends to fade from people’s memories, if not for her imposing height and mannish looks, which make her stick out no matter how much she wants to merge in with the masses. People tend to think of her as “dull” most of the time after all.

To think that Jaime Lannister, _of all people_ , remembers her… apparently, there is a way, even if she didn’t see it coming until it smacked her across the face.

“You seriously drank half of the _Smoothie of the Seven Hells_? You are _brave_ ,” Jaime snorts, nodding at the drink in her hand. “ _That_ , or suicidal. I took a sip once and nearly hurled across the counter. I don’t know why Ros keeps it on the menu.”

“I… was thirsty,” Brienne replies. “And… I’ve had worse.”

“ _Really_? Just what do you drink then? That was pretty bad the last time I checked,” he argues, making a face of disgust.

Brienne rolls her shoulders, not sure what to say, or what to think in the first place.

This is Jaime Lannister, son of Tywin Lannister, business tycoon, leading one of the most influential companies in all of Westeros. The heir to the Lannister Empire. The manager adorning business journals in tailored suits hugging his athletic frame in all the right places. The guy charming every host on every show he was ever invited to, which were _quite_ a few, Brienne can tell, she watched a lot if not all of them. The man who can talk about business process outsourcing and employer branding without any sort of effort or preparation, to make it accessible even to a layperson who has never heard of the terms, let alone the company-internal mechanisms involving either one.

It’s _this_ guy.

_And now he is a yoga trainer?_

Just what did she miss?!

“Well, it’s been quite some time since we last saw one another,” he goes on to say, ripping Brienne out of her thoughts, back to the sportswear-clad son of Tywin Lannister.

“Yeah, uhm, what a _coincidence_ ,” Brienne brings herself to say, briefly considering taking another sip of the smoothie to _somehow_ have an excuse not to reply, only to have her stomach revolting rather violently against the mere threat of another sip of a smoothie with kale in it.

“I honestly thought you were going to lunge at me during that advanced training at Riverrun,” Jaime goes on to say with an easy smile.

And if him remembering her didn’t throw Brienne into a turmoil of confusion already, then this remark tosses her right into the raging sea of no return.

The last time they saw one another, during said advanced training at Riverrun, Brienne was _most_ certain that she had just earned herself an enemy for life. Jaime was not particularly pleased, having been forced to team up with her time and time again, and making absolutely no secret about it as he pouted, teased, and fought her on every damn matter there was. And no matter how hard they tried to avoid one another, they somehow always ended up together, for yet another clash of natural forces to occur.

So, to have Jaime refer to that convention almost fondly leaves Brienne wondering if he isn’t, after all, one of the yogis who like to smoke weed every once in a while to be really, _really_ laid-back.

_How else would you explain his reaction?_

“I would… tend to give the compliment right back,” Brienne replies slowly, swallowing thickly.

“Might be. Man, that they followed through with having us team up for the rest of the convention was really brave on their behalf,” Jaime laughs, shaking his head, a few loose strands falling into his face. “I heard rumors later on that people considered calling an ambulance for the mock debate they had towards the end of the training. They thought there would be blood.”

Brienne grimaces. She wouldn’t ever know. Brienne rather tries to bypass contact with those people, particularly during events such as advanced trainings or conventions. She sucks up the information provided during the panels, takes notes, engages in the activities provided, but other than that, she knows her social skills, or rather the lack thereof, so Brienne rather keeps to herself if only not to expose herself to ridicule.

In Riverrun, Jaime Lannister was apparently the only one she spoke to, if not in a very friendly manner, even during the breaks.

_Or particularly during the breaks, upon reflection. Though he wasn’t any better. He was the one who coined the term “wench” for me._

Thinking about it, one would have to wonder why they sat together during the lunch breaks, glaring at each other for what felt like hours. Maybe Mr. Lannister was just looking for some confrontation after all.

“So – what brings you here?” he asks.

Brienne’s eyes open wide.

So he doesn't know that she signed up for one of his courses?

_Maybe the Gods are true and just after all!_

That means Brienne can escape without him knowing of it until she is safely away and never has to see him again, unless Jaime joins the next advanced education in hosted at Winterfell this time, coming next year.  

“Oh, I was just checking out…,” Brienne means to say, when suddenly, the receptionist slash barmaid slash smoothie barista slash trainer slash whatever else that she seems to be doing here waltzes over to them.

“Oh, Miss Tarth! So you already met your trainer!” the redhaired woman says with a bright smile. “I hope he didn’t annoy you just yet.”

Jaime gives Brienne a quizzical look, then turns his attention to Brienne, then to the ginger girl again, the wheels inside his head now turning, too. Eventually, Jaime’s gaze sets on Brienne as he goes on to ask, “ _You_ are my new apprentice? Ros, why didn’t you tell me that before?”

“Because you were late, _again_ , you genius,” Ros replies, rolling her eyes at him with a grin. “So you missed out on the briefing where that information would have been discussed. By the time you came in, you had to do set-up, so I didn’t see any reason to interrupt you to be on-time for our _Ladies’ Club_. They are sharks even without your running late.”

“Ah, that’d explain it,” he agrees, scratching the back of his head. Jaime turns back to Brienne with a smile. “Well, that’s an even bigger surprise! In which case, I reckon we shouldn’t waste our time, or rather yours, but get started, right?”

He gestures at the door leading inside the separate training room through which the beehive slipped in and out earlier.

Brienne’s mind is reeling. How is it possible that Jaime seems _fine_ with that, as though this was normal, natural, and not at all weird and awkward and _wrong_?!

“I, uhm, I am not yet sure if that is the right thing for me. I thought that…,” Brienne stammers, still trying to gather herself somehow, if only in vain.

“Well, the only way to find out is to give it a try. Which is the reason why I have those introductory sessions,” Jaime argues, either purposely ignoring her discomfort and _utter_ wish to run away, or being gracious enough not to call attention to it. “So now, c’mon, I think we are already behind schedule again. The ladies always take _forever_ to leave.”

“And we all know why,” Ros snorts, folding her pale arms over her chest with a grin.

“I don’t,” Jaime argues, shaking his head, to which Ros rolls her eyes at him.

Brienne can’t help but frown. Jaime can’t mean to say that he doesn’t notice just what exactly makes the _beehive_ roam around him like he is the honey they are craving. Even Brienne with her lack of social skills gathered _that_ much upon first glance.

Needless to mention that for all of the arrogance Jaime displayed back at Riverrun, he seemingly tries to act as shy and not at all aware of his looks, which most certainly are the main reasons for the _beehive_ to want to get a bit of that honey in yoga pants.

“C’mon, then. I suppose we should _really_ get started. Or else Ros is going to be mad at me again,” he laughs the sort of easy laugh Brienne cannot seem to recall from when they first met at Riverrun.

_Except for that one time, maybe…_

“You bet,” the redhaired woman agrees, crossing her arms in front of her chest for emphasis, making Jaime chuckle at her lightly.

Brienne puts the smoothie down on the desk, hops off the stool, and follows _Jaime Lannister, to repeat once more,_ as he, barefooted but nonetheless gracefully, makes his way into the training room with darkened windows facing towards the rest of the gym, seemingly to offer a bit of privacy.

_Which may be the one fortunate aspect of this whole mess._

Brienne sets her jaw in a straight line. She has to regain her composure, _right now_. Or else she will never see the end of it. Brienne lets out a shaky breath, rolls her shoulders, and tries to think about what she read up on yoga last night as she lay in bed wide awake in anticipation and inexplicable fear of what would come today.

Little did she know that this would be the outcome, though.

Brienne makes her way inside. Jaime closes the door behind her.

 _He seems so different now_ , Brienne can’t help but note.

Back during the convention at Riverrun, she couldn’t even process the possibility of him in casual wear. Jaime was the business man with gelled-back hair, clean-shaven, never breaking a sweat, always charming, _if only to everyone but me_ , simply a manager you could have cut out from a magazine. Skinny tie, perfectly tailored suit, darting green eyes.

_And an arrogant ass._

However, looking at Jaime now, his entire presence seems _different_. Brienne has no other means of describing it. Easy smiles, calm, laid-back, his hair moving freely with every shake or nod of his head, sporting his growing beard, which was absent back at Riverrun, simply all the things Brienne didn’t expect him to inherit in the first place.

Even if she already had the impression last time they met that Jaime thinks he is funnier than he actually is.

 _But yeah, fits into being an arrogant ass_ , she supposes.

“Alright, how about we sit down?” Jaime asks, pulling the blonde woman out of her thoughts, back to the room with polished parquet, a mirror wall to the front, and yoga mats in all colors of the rainbow rolled up by the side for participants to use.

Brienne frowns as Jaime gestures at two thin yoga mats still on the floor, and not over by the rest of the mat-rainbow. She already means to ask if they could move to some office or back to the bar, but Jaime already plops down on the ground, and folds his legs Indian style.

Lotus position if Brienne remembers correctly from the website she skimmed through last night.

Jaime pats on the other mattress, gesturing at her to sit down as well.

Brienne lets out a sigh before slowly easing herself to the ground, mindful of her movements. She wouldn’t want to twist the wrong way to get another wave of backpains right in front of a guy she was eager to win against in a fruitless, ridiculous competition during an even more ridiculous convention at Riverrun.

“So, Ros let me know that my newest apprentice, who turned out to be you just now, wants to try out yoga to help with the backpains,” he begins his customer pitch – _of sorts_.

“My doctor said that it might be of help, though I am not really sure about that, to be honest,” Brienne tells him, not yet sure if she shouldn’t just call this off at once instead of wasting his time, or hers for the matter.

“Hm, what treatments did you have until now?” Jaime questions, and if it’s possible, Brienne’s irritation only increases because he asks her in a way that her doctor never did. Attentively, kindly, even.

_Which seems very much unlike Jaime Lannister._

Did she meet a doppelgänger back at Riverrun or what is going on here?

Brienne licks her lips before replying, “I used to take some anti-inflammatory drugs after it showed first up when I was a teenager, due to a big growth spurt. At around the same time, I started exercise to help strengthen the muscles in my back. That seemed most fruitful, so I stopped taking the medication after some time and only focused on the sports. That worked just fine. Well, this started to shift ever since I entered my new job. Lots of sitting around, leaving little time for workout. So now the pains are back.”

“I see,” he says, nodding his head, yet again with the sort of understanding and calmness that a part of her is craving and dreading at the same time.

Because Jaime is _way_ too calm about a situation that gives Brienne such discomfort.

“Well, I only recently moved to King’s Landing, so I had to find a new physician. This one was recommended to me, and he said that yoga might be of help. I assume to build up the muscles in the back that have been used not as much as they should have ever since I started at the office,” Brienne goes on.

“I don’t think that your problem is a lack of muscles,” Jaime argues, leaning his head slightly to the side, looking at her. “You are all muscle, basically.”

Brienne sucks the inside of her cheek into her mouth. Yes, she is all muscle, bulky, mannish, not at all like the _Hot Messes_ with voluptuous bosoms to show off. And people have been dragging her for it ever since Brienne can remember. Her new doctor being an apt example.

And while she can even bring herself to believe that Jaime doesn’t mean it in an offensive way right at this moment, Brienne can’t help but be called back to the many times she was ridiculed for just those matters. 

“Which is why I am not really sure if this is the right thing for me,” Brienne says, barely moving her lips apart.

“Oh, I think you are predestined for yoga,” Jaime argues, much to her surprise, _shock_ , even.

“Uhm, _why_?” Brienne asks, before hurriedly adding, “If you don’t mind my asking.”

“Because you are tensed, and that only makes your backpains worse,” Jaime explains. Brienne tries hard not to roll her eyes.

_Now he starts on that as well._

“Yoga can help you relax,” he goes on.

“Well, I am not looking for a way to _relax_ , I am looking for a way to reduce my backpains, as I already told my doctor,” Brienne argues. “I’m very much willing to work hard for this, because I want to get rid or at least reduce the pain, but _relaxing_ is not necessarily on my agenda.”

“But relaxing will do _that_ for you. Because right now, your _apparently_ strong muscles are all tensed up, putting strain on our back instead of supporting it,” Jaime replies, his voice easy, but no less determined.

“Which is supposed to mean that my workout is what is giving me backpains now?” Brienne questions, narrowing her eyes at him slightly.

“No, far from it, it’s the tension that makes this not work in your favor,” Jaime argues, holding up his hands.

“No one’s ever told me about that,” Brienne grumbles.

No, her doctors told her to keep up with the sport. Told her to mind her posture at all times, and Brienne stuck to that – because it worked. Until it didn't anymore.

“Well, _I_ do now.”

“If you say that my not being relaxed is the issue here, then I suppose I would have similar results just taking it a bit easier in training and reduce stress. Right?” Brienne suggests, wanting more than desperately to put an end to this whole situation.

She can do _that_. Brienne read about that in an online article on the internet some nights ago while browsing hacks for how to revive a dead ficus tree after overwatering the poor plant, the results for the fencing Champion’s Cup in Braavos, and checking her mails – _repeatedly_.  

“Just that you won’t,” Jaime replies simply.

Brienne blinks at him. She didn’t expect Jaime to flat-out tell her that she would be unsuccessful. While many people doubt her, they normally know that Brienne is hardworking enough to give it at least a proper shot.

“I beg your pardon?” she asks, blinking.

Jaime leans his hands on his knees, his expression light if resolute. “Ms. Tarth, from all I can see here, you are as tight as a bowstring anyway. Your shoulders are tensed, you strain your neck to keep your back as straight as possible. And even if you make yourself believe that you can relax _just like that_ , you will likely not succeed because that's not how it works. At least not to the degree that it will offer you relief.”

“Relaxing is no impossible task. It just means to…”

He looks at her expectantly, though with the hint of a smile. “To what?”

Brienne rolls her wrist. “Get more sleep. Eat healthy. Do little workouts. Turn computer and phone off for a while. Those sorts of things.”

Whereby Brienne is quoting from an article in some outdated lady’s magazine by _Tansy Fair_ she was forced to skim through while being stuck in a waiting room to get her x-rays taken. In the pink-bordered article it said that those, among a few more, are the prime reasons for stress and apparently this then links back to bad skin.

Or so the article claimed, at least. Though they probably just wanted to advertise that brand-new skin cream by _NeutroGenna_.

“Well, those are all true, but they will not suffice to bring your muscles to relaxation the way it is required to relieve pain,” Jaime argues, adding with a grin, “Neither do I believe that you will follow through with them.”

“You think I am lying?” Brienne asks sharply, though Jaime remains unimpressed, as he goes on to reply with an easy smile, “I think you will try too hard. You seem to be the type.”

Brienne snaps her jaws together with a small clank. “With all due respect, you don't know what type of a person I am.”

“Well, _with all due respect_ , we got to know one another before. So it’s not just a wild guess, but more of an educated guess. Needless to mention that even now, you are completely tensed, as I can see.”

He gestures at her.

“Quite obviously. This is not an everyday situation,” Brienne grumbles, rolling her shoulders.

_Or an everyday location for arranging a training schedule – or not._

“You want to take yoga lessons and you make it sound like you are trying to pitch a business deal,” he snorts.

“Comes with the job, I suppose,” Brienne replies.

“Oh, it does, trust me, I know that feeling better than most,” Jaime agrees, but then his expression changes to something a bit more sincere as he goes on to say, “But, now in all honesty, Ms. Tarth. Take a good look at yourself right now. You sit there as stiff as a poker, wouldn’t you agree?”

Brienne wrinkles her nose as her gaze goes up and down the length of herself. “I was told to look after my posture since I was a kid. To bypass backpains.”

Septa Roelle hammered it into her brain since she was a young girl.

“Sit up straight, or you will walk with a hunch! Do you want that? Do you think anyone would want you, walking around with a hunch? No? Then sit up straight, the way fine ladies do, child,” was what Brienne got to hear too many times to the count.

And that stuck, over time.

“Well, there is a straight posture, and then there is being as tight as a bowstring. You belong to the latter category, sorry to tell you. And the thing is that while you surely got told rightly to aim for a good posture, you seem to have taken it a bit too much to heart, at least as of late.”

“So am I supposed to walk around slouched from now on?” Brienne questions, making a face. Because she can’t believe that this will cure her. Needless to mention that this would by no means be a training routine she would wish to follow through with.

She can’t afford to be called the _Hunchback of Tarth_ from now on, too. She already has enough trouble with _Brienne the Beauty_ , Beast, and “Brian,” for those intellectually challenged guys who still thought her a guy even after she spoke to them.

“ _No_ , but you are supposed to have a good posture without always having to sit and stand up straight.”

“I need to relax more, you mean to say.”

“Precisely.” He nods his head, a few loose strands falling into his eyes.

“And you still think yoga will do that for me better than reducing stress and exercising less?” Brienne asks.

She was once forced to come along to a hypnotist’s show, organized by the _Undying Ones_ , as part of a team-building group activity.

The blue-lipped man on-stage, with a jacket that had way too many sparkly pallets on it to be taken seriously, kept talking about how you have to be ready for the hypnosis to set in and take over your mind. He had them all fold their hands in a certain way, and when you immersed into hypnosis, proved yourself worthy of his sparkly suit, you couldn’t move your wrists apart. Brienne even tried it out of fun, only to realize that she was not one of those destined to sink into hypnosis. The hypnotist named Pyat Pree went on to say that those of the guests who got their hands back apart with ease should not fret, and that some people are just naturally predestined to be unable to dive into that ominous world.

Though Brienne gathered that he meant to say that some people just don’t believe in his bullshit.

However, looking at the situation right now, maybe it’s a parallel scenario after all: She is simply born without that gene meant to open the gates for her, to the ominous land of yoga pants.

“I am _most_ certain, yes,” Jaime tells her. “Because reducing stress is one of those empty phrases people keep throwing around, without following through with it, even if they want to. Because simply not taking phone calls doesn’t mean that your _body_ is going to relax, too. While the relationship between calmness of mind and body is undeniable and vital particularly to yoga, one does not necessitate the other. You can be calm in the head and still sit around as tense as you do right now. Yoga can potentially help you achieve relaxing those muscle areas that keep giving you trouble, though, and I daresay better than not taking phone calls ever will.”

“And buying myself a yoga book won’t do?” Brienne blurts out, though Jaime is gracious enough to chuckle at her softly in turn, “What? If you can have a true yogi teach you the fine arts of this discipline? Where is the sense in grabbing one of those three-stag yoga magazines from two years ago that fly around the bargain counters at bookstores that will teach you nothing but how women and men do the poses all wrong for the illustrations?”

“But that also means I get to be alone, in the comfort of my apartment,” Brienne argues rather shyly this time, even if she hates herself for it. Because her shy self belongs to the private, and she doesn’t want to share it with anyone.

It’s shameful enough to have a shy side like that in the first place, at least in Brienne’s opinion. It looks queer on a woman as tall and strong as she is, or so she was told so, so many times.

“I can also give private sessions at your apartment, if that makes you feel any better,” Jaime suggests with a grin. Brienne’s eyes widen at that. “What?! No. _No_.”

“I do that every once in a while,” Jaime argues, shrugging his shoulders. “It wouldn’t bother me.”

_How can he be so calm while suggesting **that**? Maybe he takes funny things after all… _

“No, no, I didn’t mean to suggest that. At all. I just meant to say…,” Brienne stutters, and Jaime completes with an easy smile, “You don't want anyone to see you.”

“… _precisely_.”

“Well, we can choose time slots later in the evening. That means you likely won’t run into anyone you know. Beside me.”

Brienne nods her head. “Right.”

“Am I right in my prediction that you want to ask me something really bad but are hesitant to do so?” Jaime goes on to ask. Brienne looks at him, perfectly stunned.

“You can go ahead,” he assures her, chuckling softly. “I mean, I don’t say I will provide an answer most certainly, but you can ask away.”

Because _yes_ , there is one question rummaging through her mind ever since she set eyes on the yoga trainer.

Brienne licks her lips. “… I am sorry, but I just have to ask: is it that you quit working at _Lannister Enterprise_ or why and how are you a yoga trainer now?!”

Because that won’t fit into her brain no matter how Brienne twists and turns it. Why would you want to quit that job of all jobs at one of the most important companies in all of Westeros, your family’s company no less, if you have a choice… not to?

Jaime laughs, leaning back slightly. “No, I still work my manager position at the family company. It’s my duty as heir to House Lannister, after all. Among other things. This here I do as part of my leisure.”

“So you give yoga lessons as a hobby?” Brienne asks with a frown.

While, gladly, this means her world picture is not completely shattered, it irritates Brienne no less to think that someone would do that in his free-time. Or more precisely, that Jaime Lannister of all people would spend his free-time like that.

Brienne never, not in a lifetime, took him to be a yoga person in the first place, let alone a yoga trainer. During the convention at Riverrun, for all his smooth talk and attitude, she was quite sure that he was a tough businessman, deep-down, someone committed to what he does, and willing to push past whoever may get in his way.

_And that doesn't resonate with a laid-back yogi, really._

“In a way, yes. I just grew tired of going to courses not teaching me anything new. Just like it grows boring if you only do it at home, alone. So, when they were looking for someone to fill in as an instructor, I went to the interview, not expecting to be taken – and got the spot anyway. I am their sweetheart now because they don’t have to pay me for my services, which _surely_ weighed in on their decision for me and against any other contestant that may have been there. I mean, it would be a waste to have them pay me, as the son of Tywin Lannister. If there is one thing my family doesn’t lack, it is money.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sure,” Brienne replies hastily, still trying to process the new information, still trying to catalog it, to make sense of it, reworking past structures to replace with new ones.

Particularly those that involve Jaime Lannister as a yoga trainer. That set of information needs a whole new folder, if not file cabinet with a lock.

“So? Have you made up your mind yet if you want to stick with us here?” Jaime asks with an easy smile. Brienne bites her lower lip. For a second, she almost forgot that she came here for just that, or for escaping _just_ that.

If Brienne were right in her mind, she would tell him “no, thank you” and leave the gym forever. If she was convinced that yoga may potentially do something for her, Brienne might just as well look for someone who is not Jaime Lannister to be her trainer. Or she may buy herself some up-to-date yoga magazine to read in the comfort of her own home after all.

_There **must** be some good yoga books out there, even if he begs to differ. _

The blonde woman opens her mouth in reply, not quite believing the sounds that travel past her lips thereafter, “I… suppose that it can’t harm to at least try it.”

_Did I really just say that?!_

Brienne tries her best not to stare as her mind starts to catalog that new piece of information the same way, though failing miserably, apparently just tossing the papers high in the air.

She just agreed to yoga training.

_With Jaime Lannister. What?!_

“That’s the spirit,” Jaime chuckles. “So, when do you have time?”

“Mondays 18.45 until 21.30, Tuesdays 19.00 till 22.30, Wednesdays 18.45 until 21.45, Thursdays 21.00 till 22.00, Fridays 16.45 until 20.15, the weekends are normally free, because… doesn’t matter. Those are my free days,” Brienne recites, finally feeling _some_ strange sort of confidence. She is very good at scheduling and planning things. That’s not just part of her job, but that is what others appreciate about Brienne around the office even if they have nothing much else to find good about the stubborn, mannish woman, sitting behind her office desk in bureau 205.

“You are _very_ organized,” he notes, laughing lightly.

“Structure is important for the kind of job we do,” Brienne replies rather shyly. She wouldn’t want him to know just _how_ important it is to her privately.

_After all, we keep those things strictly separate._

“ _Right_. So, I would suggest that we begin with three sessions per week. Since you are completely new to yoga, we need to get some basics down before we can get really started. Do you think that works for you?” Jaime goes on to ask.

“Uhm, sure,” Brienne replies, licking her lips.

“Good, then I’d say we meet up Tuesday at eight o’clock, Wednesday at the same time, and Friday at seven. The first session will not take as long. We will increase the duration of sessions only once you are all set. How does that sound?”

“Uhm, that’s… that fits into my schedule.”

She is scheduling yoga lessons, with Jaime Lannister.

_Someone, pinch me! This has to be some nightmarish dream!_

“Splendid,” Jaime says surprisingly cheerily. “Tell Ros the times before you go. She will note you down, then. I _never_ keep track on that.”

“Alright,” Brienne replies slowly.

For that he seems to not organize much of anything as a yoga trainer, Jaime was very much organized during the convention at Riverrun, which only adds another layer of confusion to Brienne’s already irritated mind, full of scattered around pages yet to file and catalog.

“For next time, you don’t have to bring anything beside maybe something to drink. Mats are here, but you can get yourself one if you want to. Some people rather have their own. Whatever else we’ll need I’ll provide. You may want to come in more comfortable clothes next time, though,” Jaime says, nodding at her blouse and dress trousers.

Brienne wants to retort that she didn’t find the time to change from work and that she didn't know the introduction would involve sitting on yoga mats, but then does not. Since she, _for some damned reason_ , agreed to him as her new yoga trainer, Brienne likely fares better to not even more at odds with him from the very beginning than she already is.

“Right. Uhm. Thank you, Mr. Lannister.”

“Jaime, just Jaime.”

“Jaime,” Brienne repeats. Somehow, that still tends to make a knot in her tongue.

She watches as Jaime gets up with the kind of effortlessness she could envy him for, if Brienne didn’t that he is a yoga trainer who is supposed to be good at those sorts of things.

Brienne is surprised when Jaime hold his hand out to her to help her stand, and apparently with the kind of ease she normally doesn’t get from most other people, who normally add a sigh, a grunt, and a “geez, you are heavy.”

“Are there any other open questions? I forgot to ask,” he says, rubbing the back of his head with his free hand.

“No, not really,” Brienne replies, still rather stunned.

“Good, then I will see you tomorrow.”

“Uhm, sure. Goodbye, then,” Brienne says, motioning towards the exit, the promised land of not-this-room.

Jaime bows his head slightly, palms flat against each other as he says with a grin, “ _Namaste_.”

“That, too.”

Jaime chuckles as Brienne rushes to the door, obviously having his dear fun at her futile attempt of escaping this awkward situation.

Brienne barely notices herself as she tells Ros the times, her mind already obsessing about all the things she has to get done until tomorrow:

Get a yoga mat that no one left his or her sweat on before.

Read up on what to expect from yoga training.

Maybe buy one of those old yoga magazines.

And _most definitely_ check out another time how to get out of the gym’s subscription in case she has a change of mind.

How else would Brienne ever manage to _relax_ , right?


	3. Breathing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne has her first training session with Jaime. 
> 
> What he wants to train with her is not really what Brienne had in mind - or what she expected, following her late-night research. 
> 
> Ros is obsessed with her smoothies. 
> 
> My summaries still suck. It is known.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Thanks for keeping with the story, kudoing, and commenting. You are a way too kind readership. 
> 
> In any case, I hope you'll enjoy this chapter. Warning goes as always, I know shit about yoga and smoothies. This is merely based on internet research. I still gave my best to make it sound halfway authentic. 
> 
> Bruh-ruh, I hope you'll like the new chapter anyway. 
> 
> Much love! ♥♥♥

At some point Brienne still asks herself why she ever agreed to trying out _yoga_. With _Jaime Lannister_ of all people on Planetos.

Yet, here she is, back at the gym, in loosely fitted sports pants she got at the men’s department – _because for **some** reason the industry believes that only standard-sized women do sports _ – coupled with another item she snatched at the men’s department, a plain olive t-shirt loosely dangling down her not existent curves.

After all, Brienne is not part of the _Hot Mess_ _Beehive_.

“Ah, Miss Tarth!” she can hear Ros call out to her. Brienne turns her head to the redhaired woman hurrying over to her with a bright smile matching her bright sports clothing.

“You are early,” Ros says with a gentle smirk on her plump lips, clapping Brienne on the shoulder. This leaves the tall woman to wonder why everyone around this gym is so laid-back and touchy. Normally, people keep their distance from her and never go beyond handshakes, at least for when Brienne is around people who are not her friends, family, or are on a date with her, _which is rare enough in the first place_.

“Uhm, it’s a habit, I guess,” Brienne tells her with a grimace.

She can’t remember the last time she came late for anything. Just like Brienne can’t remember the last time she took a sick leave. Brienne’s record is squeaky clean in that regard, which may be why bosses actually tend to like her. She is sturdy, reliable, always on time, and does her job without lament.

That may make them overlook her “robotic” – to quote one of her former employers – attitude, or so Brienne reckons. Not that she gives much on it. She knows what she is capable of and what she has to offer in terms of her skills and hard work.

“If you want to, you can already go inside. Jaime’s messed up the schedule again, believing that he had a private session prior to this one today, though that one is taking place on Thursday,” Ros groans, rolling her eyes. “One has to wonder how comes he seems to handle himself fine in the business world otherwise. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that guy would forget to put on shoes in the morning before going outside.”

“Well, I assume he just trusts you to handle it for him?” Brienne suggests, briefly wondering if Ros and Jaime are a couple or doing the dance of _will-they-will-they-not_. They seem familiar, close, even. Ros organizes the stuff he doesn’t. He makes her smile. She makes him smile. It could be…

But why does Brienne bother anyway?

She values the private after all, so Brienne shouldn’t stick her nose into other people’s businesses. If those two are happy together or _happy-to-be-together-soon_ , then that is so, but that needn’t and shouldn’t concern her.

_Right?_

“Hm, might be,” Ros laughs cheerily. “Well, in any case, if you want to, you can just head inside. Or if you want another smoothie…”

“I will pass, thank you,” Brienne interrupts her, holding up her hands.

She was very tempted to throw up five times throughout the night as she found herself belching from the kale smoothie once she got home. So no, Brienne doesn’t want to be brave regarding that drink ever again, so long she can help it.

“Alright, then, have fun!” Ros replies, shrugging her shoulders, giving Brienne’s arm another reassuring, if odd to Brienne, squeeze before going back to the bar, instantly charming customers into trying edible hell in the shape of green kale smoothies.

Brienne grimaces to herself as she walks over to the separate compartment wherein the yoga lessons take place behind darkened windows.

She is not here for fun, after all.

She is here to get her backpain in check, and then never come back.

_So the plan. So… better get over with it as fast as possible._

Brienne opens the door slowly before stealing inside.

“Ah, there you are! You are early!” Jaime greets her, clad in the same yoga pants as the other day, but in a dark navy muscle shirt this time, waddling barefooted through the room to drag mats from A to B, for whatever the purpose now exactly.

“So I was told,” Brienne says in a flat voice. “Good day.”

“ _Namaste_ ,” Jaime chuckles, repeating the gesture he always does when he says that word.

This makes Brienne grimace yet again, but she chooses not to comment further. Brienne knows she tends to start babbling when she is nervous, a habit she developed as a child, if young Brienne didn’t fall completely silent, which was and still is mostly the case.

And if Jaime catches her rambling like a teenager girl, it will only add fuel to that hidden shit-eating smile of his that Brienne can see even when he tries to hide it behind his yogi attitude. Because Brienne is well aware that this likely gives Jaime Lannister _a lot_ of pleasure, to be in the position of authority over her, after she was at his throat back at Riverrun.

The way Brienne understood it, it may well be that she was the first if not only one who even dared to speak up against him overtly. Mostly, people whisper behind other people’s backs, even behind the broad back of Jaime Lannister.

Brienne also heard the rumors revolving around Jaime’s involvement in the hostile takeover of _Targ Corp_. through a cooperation between _Baratheon Industries_ and _Stark Inc_. some years ago, which was later on coined as Robert’s Rebellion. It was Robert Baratheon who eventually took over _Targ. Corp_ and _integrated_ it into _Baratheon Industries_. Which was the equivalent to annihilating the Targaryen’s industrial empire they had by the time. Aerys Targaryen, who ran _Targ Corp_. before the fall of said empire, was sued for illegal practices.

Jaime had been working at _Targ Corp_. during that period, and made a statement to authorities and judges about the unlawful business practices. That in itself may not have earned him the byname Kingslayer, but what Jaime then revealed did.

As far as Brienne heard, Aerys took him to be some strange sort of right-hand man despite the fact that Jaime was still considerably young by the time he joined the company, and rose in the hierarchy very fast, which made it perhaps even more of what some people called “a betrayal of trust.”

Because Jaime admitted to authorities to have evidence for Aerys having planned for arson in one of his old office complexes, in the hope it’d bring him profit thanks to high insurance claims. The scandal was that several people had gotten injured in the fire, and that Aerys took that risk, seemingly believing that to be a small price compared to the insurance claims.

People have started whispering ever since then, because Jaime didn’t report straight away. Thus, it was believed for the longest of times (and some people still do to this day) that Jaime was involved in the arson and just threw Aerys under the bus after Robert and Ned put pressure on _Targ Corp_., to get his own head out of the sling.

Whereas Brienne is still most certain that Jaime Lannister is a miserable, arrogant ass most of his time, she couldn’t bring herself to believe _that_. While she herself has not yet figured out why Jaime withheld that information for so long, it’s not like he gained anything from it. Robert got the company and stocks thanks to that takeover, whereas Jaime left that situation with his reputation shattered, leaving him with no other choice but to stick to the family company if he ever wanted to make it in the industry.

Plainly, no one would hire the Kingslayer other than his own family ever since that incident. Thus, one would actually have to ask oneself how comes that Jaime withheld that information with the aim of getting his head out of the sling, when in fact it was never removed from him since.

Perhaps it’s really that people underestimate him. And maybe, Brienne may have had another opinion if she had never clashed with him at Riverrun. However, during the convention, for all his arrogant attitude, Brienne learned that she has to give him that one simple thing: Jaime is exceptionally good at what he does, he is gifted with the attitude it takes to be in one of the top management positions, but at the same time he has knowledge to back up his claims.

So, if he weren’t the Kingslayer, Jaime could make it _anywhere_.

And if that is the case, then really, it seems more than farfetched to Brienne to believe that he only ever threw Aerys under the bus to walk out of this mostly unscathed. Jaime’s had any opportunity to become a central player in the industry even without his father’s name as a backup.

And back at Riverrun, there were just those whispers, mumbled over overly expensive canteen food and bad coffee, and Brienne is fairly certain that it was Jaime’s first time to have someone be up against him to the front rather than the back once she dared to open her mouth and oppose him for all to hear.

While Brienne reckons that this didn’t make her rise in his ranking, she wouldn’t have it any other way. Brienne hates gossip, and she hates it that people escape to the back rather than the front. It’d make so many things easier, particularly for a woman who is achingly bad at reading people, if everyone stopped hiding behind lies and whispers.

_Well, it’s no matter now anyway – because apparently, I agreed to Yoga Lessons with the Kingslayer!_

Brienne is not particularly pleased at the close periphery of the two mats Jaime already set up before she got inside. Brienne somehow hoped for either one to be positioned on opposite sides, really. Though that hope was rather wishful thinking, she is aware.

_Maybe I should have gone to the group sessions after all. But then again… who’d want to get stung by the bees?_

Brienne licks her lips, eyes fixed on the mats. Goodwin used to give her the advice to take the initiative if she is nervous, to gain control, so maybe she should do just that. “So, uhm, what is on schedule today? Bridge pose, Cat, Locust?”

Jaime snorts at her, much to Brienne’s disappointment. “Someone has been reading up, huh?”

“I rather walk into a situation prepared,” she tells him.

At least that is what Brienne was able to gather from online articles last night.

She didn’t get her hands on a yoga magazine – and no yoga mat yet sadly, because apparently, those shops were closed by the time she left the gym, and Brienne didn’t have the time to get one before work, so she will have to suffer through other people’s mats at least today.

_My brand-new mat should be delivered right to my door tomorrow morning at 7.45, according to **Trident’s** order tracking service. And they better be on time!_

“Yeah, no, we are doing none of these things today,” Jaime says, to Brienne’s utter confusion.

“Oh, I thought those were popular for helping with backpains,” Brienne argues, meaning to add that she read that online, but then does not.

“They are. It’s just that we will turn to them later on in the training,” Jaime replies.

“Oh. So what are we going to tackle instead?” Brienne asks, wanting to make this as short and focused as possible.

_Efficiency is key, after all._

“ _Tackle_?” Jaime repeats, curling his lips into a frown, if an amused one.

“I just like to approach problems head-on,” Brienne tells him, rolling her broad shoulders. “I don't need that whole tip-toing around.”

“Yeah, I realized that you are rather head-on in your approaches, not just when it comes to yoga,” Jaime laughs. “But we will try to break up some patterns, see where that goes.”

Brienne wrinkles her nose. A part of her hoped that maybe if she took charge of the situation, he’d roll with that instead, but no such luck.

_Thanks for the advice anyway, Goodwin._

“So?” she asks, licking her lips.

“You are eager,” he snorts.

_To get out of here as fast as possible, yeah!_

“I just… want to get started. Do we do stretching first or…,” Brienne asks, only to have Jaime interrupt her in a soft tone, “No stretching.”

“Then… what _are_ we doing?” Brienne frowns.

If they are not doing backpain-reducing exercises, and no exercises that require stretching, which is the case for almost all sports activities Brienne got to know thus far, then what are they supposed to be doing? Sitting around and ogling at each other? Taking trips down memory lane with whale noises?

_Because if he dares do that, I am out of here faster than he can say “kale smoothie,” that much is for sure._

“Breathing,” is the explanation Brienne receives from him.

She blinks.

_What?!_

“I beg your pardon?”

“Breathing,” Jaime repeats, _obviously_ taking pleasure in her irritation.

“The thing I do the whole time? I need to practice _that_?” Brienne blurts out. “I always thought that wasn’t really an option but more of a necessity.”

It didn’t say so in _any_ of the articles she read online last night.

Brienne studies Jaime’s mimic to detect the giveaway for the grand joke, but… for all she can see, Jaime is serious about that.

_He **is** serious. What the Seven Hells…?_

“As I said yesterday, part of our agenda is to help you _relax_. Breathing is one of those tools we can use to help you ease,” Jaime goes on to say, though that doesn’t make any more sense to Brienne at this point.

“I mean, it’s not like I don’t breathe every once in a while,” she can’t help but huff.

Brienne bites her lower lip. She really shouldn’t be that disrespectful to Jaime, even if he is an arrogant ass. They are now in a cooperation, even if it only revolves around yoga. Which, in turn, means that she has to pay him the basic respect she’d expect of him the same way.

But when someone tells her that she has to practice breathing, Brienne honestly has a hard time not blurting out in her irritation. She searches his eyes, glad to see that he doesn’t seem offended, but only gives her a reassuring sort of smile.

Jaime holds up his hands, still chuckling. “Trust me, I called this bullshit the first time I heard it, too, but it works, believe it or not.”

“What? You weren’t always faithful to the Gods of Yoga?” Brienne questions.

After all, she still tends to believe that there are yoga people and non-yoga people the same way there are hypnotizable people and non-hypnotizable people in the world.

“I will admit it, I was an atheist. Shocking, I know. I mean, I basically am an atheist when it comes to actual deities, but with the _Gods of Yoga_ … I was bound to resume my opinions I had prior to trying it. So yeah, I know where that is coming from and can relate,” Jaime assures her.

Brienne wrinkles her nose.

_Now, **that** comes unexpected. _

“So? How about we give it a try?” Jaime asks, and Brienne is really irritated that he asks. Normally, she is used to getting told what to do, specifically when it comes to her health or sport activities. When the doctors told her to sit up straight, she sat up even straighter, when her Septa told her not to slouch, she made sure not to slouch, when her trainer told her to move this way and not that way, she did it so.

_But maybe it’s yet again one of those empty phrases anyway. It most likely is._

“If you insist…,” Brienne replies cautiously, her voice trailing off. Jaime gives her another chuckle.

For a guy who was in her face all the while during the convention at Riverrun, he is full of smiles and giggles now. Brienne still finds herself trying to spot a camera in one of the corners of the room and for the _real_ Jaime Lannister she met at the advanced training to step forward to reveal that this yogi is just a damn convincing doppelgänger and that she should now smile into the camera.

Because no matter how Brienne twists and turns it inside her head, her yoga trainer is so very different from the man she encountered at Riverrun that she cannot even begin to grasp that they are indeed the same person.

Because the one from Riverrun, she wanted to choke out constantly. This one? Brienne is not yet sure.

“I suppose I will insist, then,” Jaime tells her. “So sit down on the mat over there. I’ll just fix something little quick.”

Brienne sits down on the slightly squishy mat, which makes shuffling noises as she sits down, her eyes following Jaime as he waddles over to the door, grabs a small rectangular sign from the ground reading “ _Do not disturb_!”, and hooks it on the door handle towards the outside before closing it.

And Brienne is more than grateful for it, because that gives her some security of this whole situation not flooding out of the room, out into the spectrum of the public.

Jaime walks back over to her to resume his seat on his own red mat, crossing his legs effortlessly.

“Alright, because you belong to the skeptical species of apprentices, I suppose it might be good to take you through the actual advantages that come with breathing practices,” he goes on to say.

“Okay,” Brienne agrees, nodding her head.

That sounds surprisingly reasonable in her humble opinion.

Because, in her experience, most doctors Brienne has seen and most trainers she has worked with, seemingly always assumed that she wouldn’t have further questions, let alone input to take into consideration. Needless to mention that no one ever really expected Brienne to be as well-researched as she has always been.

_While sleepless nights are a pain in the ass, they give you quite some time to read up on medical papers, latest studies, and newest treatments._

Brienne always felt a slight pang of pride for when she managed to catch them off-guard by pointing out whether this training or that medication or this treatment weren’t worth consideration, because very often, they didn’t even hear of it until Brienne brought it up.

So, to have someone take her through it to explain her the merits is actually a welcoming change for Brienne.

_Though that still doesn’t mean I will join this club of madness or continue with yoga more generally._

“We call it _Pranayama_ , which means roughly ‘to extend the vital life force’ which then in turn is called _prana_ ,” Jaime goes on to explain, ripping Brienne back to the two mats at too close periphery and the faint odor of sweat.

Brienne tries her best not to grimace, because this already sounds like the kind of bogus she always refused to listen to when she once dared to ask Sansa about how her homeopathic treatment for her, by the time, rather frequent travel sickness ever since she relocated to King’s Landing. Brienne was not prepared for the young red-haired woman to have completely emerged into the subject matter. Sansa could recount all the herbs and flowers and seeds and weird powders and potions within a single intake of air. And it makes Brienne dizzy listening to the young woman whenever the topic turns up ever since then.

“The breathing techniques I am going to show you in the next couple of sessions support the parasympathetic nervous system, and help you focus. What will likely happen over the practice is that you yourself will start to notice when you are holding your breath unintentionally, or breathe shallowly for no particular reason. All of which adds tension to your body,” Jaime goes on to explain, and Brienne pricks her ears at that, because this sounds almost plausible.

“You can also practice them at home if you like. It’s something you can do even at the office in order to relax,” he adds.

“And you do that at the office, too?” she asks.

“Sometimes?”

“Really.”

“ _Really_.”

“Huh.”

“Alright, so can we try that?” Jaime questions, and Brienne must say that his asking her is actually one of the very few things she appreciates about that whole set-up until now. It gives her a sense of being in charge of a situation that is otherwise beyond her control.

And Brienne hates any loss of control whatsoever.

“I think breathing should be within my capacities,” she replies.

“I like the confidence,” Jaime laughs. “So now, I’d suggest we start out with either the _Sitali_ or the _Sitkari Pranayama_ , also known as the _Cooling Breath_.”

“Why either or?” She frowns.

“Because it depends on your genetics,” is the reply Brienne gets, but doesn’t explain it, really.

Maybe having a choice is not that much of a good idea after all.

“You mean to say?” Brienne asks, curling her lips into a frown.

“Can you roll your tongue?” Jaime questions, to which Brienne makes a face of irritation.

She has been asked odd questions throughout her life. Most of which related to her looks, her height, or her sex, but Brienne can’t remember the last time someone asked her if she could _roll her tongue_. In fact, Brienne is _pretty_ sure that no one asked her such a thing up until now.

“Like that,” he goes on, sticking out his rolled tongue to her.

“Sure,” Brienne replies curtly. She doesn’t have to show him, right? That is what little children do. Though, if Brienne is correct in her reading of his expression, Jaime actually expected her to do it.

_Yeah, kindergarten indeed._

“In which case we can go with the _Sitali Pranayama_. The _Sitkari_ is for those who can’t roll their tongues.”

“Alright…”

Jaime stands back up, his movements as fluid as water. Brienne watches him attentively as he maneuvers behind her.

“So, I want you to take a comfortable sitting position,” Jaime says, standing _way_ too close to her to Brienne’s liking. She can feel his body heat radiating against her shoulder blades already.

“Lotus seat or…,” she asks.

“Whichever works for you,” he replies. Brienne can _hear_ the smile on his face – and she _hates_ it.  

The young woman wrinkles her nose, then sits down in what she _assumes_ is the most comfortable position for her. Brienne almost jumps when she feels Jaime’s hands on her broad shoulders.

“As I said, as tensed as a bowstring,” he laughs at her reaction, which has Brienne snap right back at him, “Well, do you expect me to _not_ be jumpy when you just grab me from behind?”

“I stood in your back for good five seconds. You saw me move there before. It’s not like I just jumped you, let’s not pretend,” he snorts.

“There is a difference between standing behind someone and touching someone from behind without giving any sort of announcement beforehand.”

“You don’t say.”

Brienne grumbles to herself.

 _That_ , on the other hand, sounds much more like the cocksure man she made the acquaintance of at the convention at Riverrun. Full of himself, always teasing, and a classical know-it-all.

“What comes next?” she asks, blowing out air through her nostrils.

“We are waiting until you relax a bit more.”

“It’s not going to happen so long you keep standing behind me,” she warns him, to which Jaime offers, “Do you want whale noises to help calm the nerves? Some of my clients swear by it.”

“I think I will pass.”

“I also have ocean waves. Though it’s from the west coast, not east coast, so maybe that would be too unfamiliar for you anyway,” he jokes.

“I don't need any nature sounds to help me calm. It’s not working.”

Brienne tries her best not to flinch when Jaime presses the flat of his left palm against the space between her shoulder blades to make her lean forward slightly.

“I guess that’s as far as it gets for now. At least your spine doesn’t look like someone rammed a broomstick through it,” Jaime says as he removes his hand – far too slowly to Brienne’s liking.

“What’s next?” she sighs, keeping her voice low, leveled, and as disinterested as possible. Brienne will not give him the feeling that he is being of any help so long Jaime doesn’t do anything to prove himself.

After all, Jaime was the one giving speeches about how he can help her relax and get her pain in check.

_Well, now would be the time to prove it, Mr. Lannister._

“So now, I want you to lower your chin a bit, but only so long it’s comfortable for you. Do you think you can do that?” he asks.

“I am not stupid,” she huffs.

“But stiff.”

Brienne lowers her chin with a loud snort. “Does that suffice?”

“Yeah, looks good,” Jaime chuckles. “Such a fast-learning apprentice you are.”

“Are we moving on?” she sighs, which earns her yet another amused chuckle from the bearded yogi standing behind her, “Now I want you to roll your tongue, since you claim that you can do it, and stick it out of your mouth slightly. Again, only as far as it doesn’t put a strain on you.”

“For real?” Brienne blurts out asking.

“For real.”

“And _that_ helps me with my back _how_?” Brienne questions. Jaime lets out a sigh this time, now sounding annoyed _at last_ , “Will we now debate on the matter or do I have to pull your tongue out?”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Then don’t try me.”

Brienne blows out air through her nostrils before doing as Jaime said, feeling utterly ridiculous about herself, which, or so Brienne supposes, is not really working in favor of helping her calm and relax.

_So much to that._

“Now, once I count to three, I want you to gently inhale through your tongue, which will give you the cooling effect that gave the technique its name, while lifting your chin towards the ceiling, but again, only as far as it’s comfortable. Do you think you can do that? Or do you want me to show you?”

Brienne unrolls her tongue briefly to reply, “I think that should be within my capacities, even as a novice.”

“I do like the self-confidence,” Jaime laughs.

Brienne shakes her head, bends her head back down, rolls her tongue to stick it out, and then follows through with what Jaime told her, slowly lifting her head towards the ceiling, or rather, Jaime looking down on her with that dumb sort of smile that she already got to know at the convention.

“Good, now I want you to retract your tongue and close your mouth to exhale through your nostrils while slowly lowering your chin to a neutral position,” he says.

Brienne does so, if with a big frown written across her face, as she lowers her head back to its usual position.

“Not bad for the first time,” he praises her.

And that is _most definitely_ the first time Brienne got praised for taking a breath.

“Not bad? There is a way of doing it wrong?” she questions.

“Well, you still have to relax your back more, but that comes with time. And generally, you’d have _no_ idea how many people struggle to coordinate more than two movements at once. To me, it’s a miracle that some people can talk and walk at the same time, given how they fare during the _Sitali_.”

“So, I have breathed,” Brienne declares. “What’s next?”

“Doing it again.”

“How many times?”

“Until I tell you to stop.”

“That’s not very specific.”

“And that is something you’ll have to get used to,” he replies in a sing-song.

“Why?” she asks, making a face.

“Because you are obsessive about that. It’s not about doing it a certain number of times, it’s about doing it the right way. So, head down and repeat,” Jaime says, giving the back of her head a light push that has Brienne glaring back at him. Though Jaime seems to be little concerned, flashing his usual smirk at her.

“Eyes to the front,” he tells her. “And tongue out.”

“If you believe that this helps me relax, then you are gravely mistaken.”

“And you will have to get used to me joking,” he hums to a tune only he knows.

“Do I?” she huffs.

“If you want to work with me, yeah.”

“What if I don't want to work with you?” she argues, to which he answers, “Then you would have fled by now. You didn’t. That means you want to stay.”

“That doesn’t mean I want to stay,” Brienne insists.

“Eyes to the front and tongue out. Now, c’mon. Don’t disappoint the faith I put in you as my apprentice,” Jaime urges her.

“I am _not_ your apprentice.”

“Yoga buddy?”

“No.”

“Tongue out and repeat what we just did,” Jaime insists in his easy tone that has Brienne on the verge of going insane already.

_Though that is probably the exact reason why he does it!_

Brienne rolls her eyes, sticks out her rolled tongue and starts to inhale as she lifts her head, her gaze inevitably reuniting with Jaime’s, since he still looks down on her, taking any pleasure in just that circumstance.

“And now we retract the tongue, close the mouth, and exhale through the nostrils as we lower the head back down slowly.”

Brienne rolls her eyes yet again, for him to see, as she starts to turn her head back forward.

“Happy now?” she sighs.

“You went too fast towards the end. Like that, you only strain your neck again. And if you strain your neck, you strain your back,” Jaime corrects her, much to Brienne’s surprise. “So, for the next try, I will guide your head, so you have received a fair warning. I am now going to touch the back of your head. _Beware_.”

Brienne grumbles to herself as the fingers of his left hand rest against the back of her head.

“Now, head forward,” Jaime instruct her, gently pushing her head to the position he wants her to take. “Tongue out.”

“You don’t always have to say that.”

“But I like it,” he chuckles.

“Ugh,” she grunts.

“Tongue out. Inhale. Lift your head slowly,” Jaime goes on, using his thumb and index finger to, yet again, very gently lift her head.

His touches are surprisingly soft, Brienne can’t help but note. Normally, most doctors, tend to go rougher on her than they would perhaps on a _Hot Mess Bee_. Though, of course, Brienne is aware that they don’t just act carelessly on her, they are professionals after all. Nevertheless, she can’t help but feel like most of them have a different way of going about her, compared to how they would handle a fragile and easily breakable _Hot Mess Bee_.

The way Brienne reckons, they still confuse her for a guy, even though they have the health report clearly stating otherwise.

For all Brienne knows, so long “ _Fragile – with care_!” isn’t written on your skin in bold letters, most people seem to believe that you can fall to the ground infinitely many times without breaking. Even if that couldn’t be further from the truth. Maybe someone just forgot to write it down, maybe it got washed away, maybe the letters are in the wrong place, but just because your body doesn’t wear that label doesn’t mean it’s unbreakable or doesn’t require care in its handling.

So, while Brienne would never admit it out loud, she can’t help but appreciate that bit of a change in how she is being brought into position. Though it is still clearly overshadowed by Jaime’s shit-eating grin.

“Tongue in. Slowly exhale through the nostrils. Lower your head gently to a comfortable position,” Jaime goes on to say, his voice even, as though he was talking to a scared animal. Yet again, he gives her head a light push forward, moving a lot slower than she did at first, and Brienne has to realize that this does… _something_ differently than her attempt did.

_Though that, by no means, proves that he was right, obviously._

“Let’s do it again,” he suggests.

“You can take your hand off now, I counted the seconds,” Brienne assures him, though Jaime’s hand stays firmly in place as he replies, “Which tells me that my hand stays put. Stop counting, by the Seven.”

“I am trying to do things as you teach them to me?” Brienne argues. Jaime was the one who, only some seconds ago, told her that she had to go slower.

_Make up your mind!_

“I didn't ask you to count the seconds. I want you to get a feeling for your body,” he argues.

“ _Feeling for my body_?” Brienne repeats, the words making knots in her tongue. That is on the same level as empty phrases such as “being yourself,” “finding your style,” and “believing in yourself,” which seem to be way too much _en vogue_ in magazines and TV shows, at least in Brienne’s opinion.

“We will just keep doing it until you notice,” Jaime tells her as though it was an assurance, though Brienne takes it as more of a threat, really.

“No, explain it already,” she urges him.

“Head forward. Tongue out,” Jaime says, unimpressed.

“No.”

“ _Yes_ ,” he retorts, sincerer this time. “I have experience in yoga. You don’t. So even if you can’t bring yourself to believe in the _magic_ , you have to at least recognize that I have more knowledge on the matter than you do from what I assume was a late-night shift on reading up anything yoga related in online forums and blogs.”

“I also checked out journals,” Brienne mutters, feeling very small all of a sudden.

“Head forward. Tongue out.”

Brienne sighs, before she goes ahead to do as Jaime said. She doesn't like it, but her yoga trainer does have a point in all this. Because yes, Jaime has more knowledge, and Brienne knows she owes him that much respect.

That doesn’t make it any easier for her to ease into that whole situation, however.

_Just like his attitude is not exactly helpful!_

“Inhale. Lift your head, slowly.”

Brienne does as she is told, the presence of the pads of his fingers pressing against the back of her head ever so gently now about as irritating as it is… _not_.

“Tongue in. Slowly lower your head. Exhale.”

While Brienne still feels utterly ridiculous for doing that whole routine in the first place, she has to give Jaime that much, it’s _cooling_ indeed, no matter the heat she feels rising to her cheeks otherwise.

“That was better already. Well done,” Jaime commends her. “Now roll your shoulders a few times to ease out some of the tension, and then we repeat the whole thing another time.”

“You don't have to praise me for exhaling properly, can we agree on that?” Brienne grunts, to which he chuckles in amusement, “I am trying to motivate you. Which doesn’t seem to be an easy task in the first place, given your utter reluctance. So, head forward and tongue out. C’mon.”

Brienne rolls her eyes as she follows through with it anyway.

“You know, I told you to roll your shoulders, not your big blue eyes,” Jaime argues. “Imagine what will happen if you do it too often and you eventually get cross-eyed.”

“That comes out of reflex,” Brienne says before sticking out her tongue. “Needless to mention that no study has yet found a direct correlation between rolling one’s eyes excessively and _heterotropia_.”

Jaime laughs. “You _really_ are a reluctant one. Possibly the most reluctant I ever had. Inhale and lift your head slowly.”

Brienne turns her head upwards to meet his gaze again.

“But oh well, I do enjoy a good challenge every once in a while. I am sure you are going to give me one,” Jaime continues. “Tongue in. Breathe out through the nostrils. Slowly lower your head.”

Brienne lowers her head again.

“See, you are getting better upon each try.”

“Yeah, I am breathing. Let us rejoice,” Brienne grumbles, not at all pleased with this routine.

“And you nod your head. Both at the same time,” he jokes.

“Shocking.”

“I know,” he laughs. “Aaaaaaand we bow our head again. Tongue out.”

“For the record, you do enjoy yourself repeating that _ad nauseam_?”

“Absolutely,” Jaime agrees.

“Thought so.”

“Tongue out.”

Brienne just suffers through repetition after repetition until Jaime seems satisfied enough with her way of going about breathing and nodding that he removes his hand from the back of her head.

If she counted correctly, and Brienne _always_ counts correctly, _he shall be damned_ , Jaime tells her to stop after twelve repetitions in total.

“Very good. That went smoother than I thought.”

“You thought I was going to fail at the breathing task,” Brienne says, cocking an eyebrow at him.

“I thought you would butt-head back into my crotch,” he snorts, amused.

“Hm.” Brienne makes a face, which has him front at her in turn. “What? Did that give you an idea for next time? Maybe I should get myself a jockstrap next time.”

Brienne rolls her eyes – _even at the risk of getting cross-eyed._

While she knows Jaime is just jesting, that sounds so very much like the many times she had guys call her a _beast_ , the kind of woman who has no other goal but to knock men into the dust – and while Brienne _can_ , it doesn’t mean she feels the utter _urge_ to do so, she just does it when someone leaves her no other choice.

But that seems to be the thing when you happen to be a mannish woman. Men expect you to be manly. And even if they don’t, they expect you to want to annihilate males either “because, deep down, you wanna have a cock,” to quote one high school jock, or “because you wouldn’t know how to act like a girl even though you supposedly have a cunt,” to quote a guy she had both the duty and the pleasure to wipe the floor with at a gym on Tarth when she called him out on harassing other women where she trained at by the time. When he got physical, so did she.

_He was faster on the floor than he could say “oof.”And just as fast he was out of the gym, cursing and whining._

But sometimes, Brienne still wonders what’s so utterly outrageous about the idea that she may be mannish in looks, but maybe not as much when it comes to her personality. Yet, that is when Brienne reminds herself that she doesn’t bother correcting people, doesn’t bother to get to know people after she got burned pretty badly way too many times to the count, and that it seemingly stands to reason that people never see past her ungainly exterior.

Brienne doesn’t let them see, so maybe that is the burden she chose to carry in favor of having that private self protected.

“Hey, you threatened me, so don’t get annoyed at me for considering taking security measurements,” Jaime argues jokingly.

“You won’t need them,” she grunts, annoyed.

“You promise me that?”

“Sure.”

“I mean, promises aren’t an easy thing to make,” he goes on to say, which does surprise Brienne. She normally expects businessmen to give little on codes of honor or promises. In the industry, it’s always about being three steps ahead, and that involves moving behind people’s backs, leaving them under the belief that you are in their team, when really, you are not.

And she expected Jaime to be of a similar kind, to be honest. So, to have him talk about promises mean something is rather striking to Brienne after all.

“I know, but be certain, if I make a promise, I stick to it,” she assures him.

“Then I am relieved. Would be a shame.”

“Yeah, right,” she sighs. “So what are we doing next? After we breathed thoroughly?”

“More breathing.”

“For real?” Brienne grunts. She hoped that was it.

“For real,” Jaime agrees, nodding his head with a grin.

“Ugh.”

“Your level of motivation is exceeding any worldly measure.”

“I am still here. That is more of a miracle after all,” Brienne argues, waving her hand at him dismissively.

“Yeah, I take what I get,” Jaime replies. “So now. We will carry on with another breathing technique. The relaxed, diaphragmatic breathing.”

“No fancy name this time?” Brienne asks, cocking an eyebrow at him.

“I thought you’d rather do without,” Jaime says, shrugging his shoulders.

“It’s greatly appreciated.”

“I reckoned so. Anyways, this has some great advantages.”

“Such as?”

“The benefits include that this breathing technique helps quiet and calm the entire nervous system, reduces stress and anxiety, and improves one’s self-awareness.”

“And how do we do that? Do I have to roll my tongue again?” Brienne questions.

“Nah, that’s for the _Sitali_ ,” Jaime answers as he motions back towards the front, something Brienne greatly appreciates because that means she doesn’t always have the tension in her back that comes with him standing there, forcing her to always feel the urge to turn around to check on what he is up to.

_Way to reduce backpains, huh?_

“So now, for this breathing technique, I need you to lie on your back,” Jaime goes on, tapping against her knees lightly to gesture at her to lower herself onto the mat. Brienne wrinkles her nose as she carefully leans down on the squishy mat, trying her best not to grimace at the discomfort it apparently gives her.

“If your back is too bad, we can also delay that,” he asks, seemingly having seen it at once that she is struggling, which Brienne cannot say of some many doctors she made the acquaintance of.

“It’s fine,” she replies through pursed lips.

“That didn’t look like it to me,” Jaime argues. “Again, the idea is that you ease. If it gives you pain, you aren’t going to be able to relax.”

“Once I lie on my back, it’s fine. It’s just the motion of lowering myself down,” Brienne explains.

“You are sure.”

“Yes.”

Jaime sucks in a deep breath before speaking up again, “Alright, then. Take a few breaths and tell me once you are considerably pain-free again. Then we get into position.”

“I said it’s fine,” Brienne insists, her annoyance growing by the second.

“I said that you should take your time, and so you will. Geez, woman,” he grumbles.

“There, comfortable now,” Brienne argues, wriggling her arms around.

“Okay,” Jaime says, kneeling down beside her. “Now I want you to bend your knees, with the feet flat on the mat. Yet again, only if that doesn’t cause you greater discomfort.”

The tall woman rolls her eyes. She can damn well bend her knees on a mat, she isn’t an invalid, _Seven Hells_!

Needless to mention that her greater struggle consists of resisting the urge of swatting his hand away as it comes to rest on her knee.

“Can you part your legs to about hip-distance?”

Brienne simply does so, hoping sincerely that this will make his hand retreat. Because once she asks him, it’ll call attention to it, once she calls attention to it, Jaime is going to tease her about it, no doubt.

“Alright, looks good,” Jaime says, _thankfully_ removing his palm from her knee to scoot closer to her midsection again, only to grasp her wrist with his left to put her own palm on her flat stomach.

“Okay, we are all set now,” he declares, seemingly satisfied with the results.

“A lot of set-up for breathing,” Brienne comments.

“As I said, it’s more than that.”

“Apparently,” she replies with a grimace, yet again, trying to appear natural as his left keeps enclosing her wrist.

“Now I want you to take a deep breath, but _really_ try to do it consciously.”

“And no rolled tongue this time?”

“You can if it makes you feel better,” he laughs.

“I think I’ll pass,” Brienne snorts, before sucking in a deep breath, feeling her stomach pressing against her palm as it inflates with air. She exhales again.

“Did you notice anything?” Jaime questions.

“I thought you wanted to notice something?” Brienne argues, making a face.

“This is about you becoming conscious of your breathing. The idea is that you get a feeling for your body, for your breathing. That is best achieved by your gaining a better understanding of what happens when you do certain movements, even breathing,” Jaime explains.

Brienne snaps her eyes around to him. “You could have told me before!”

“This is no make-or-break method,” Jaime argues. “So, do it another time and try to see for yourself. Does it feel tensed when you breathe? Do you feel any strain while you do so? Is your breath uneven at some point? Shallow? Just keep doing it until you realize something.”

“If you think that works…”

“In my experience, it does.”

She sighs. “Alright, then.”

Brienne sucks in a deep breath once more, and tries to block out the very fact that she is on a yoga mat in front of Jaime Lannister, _of all people on entire Planetos_ , whose left hand is still resting atop of hers as she is doing something as trivial as breathing, in sportswear from the men’s department no less.

Just like she tries her best not to think about the fact that, no matter her discomfort at just that circumstance, his easy, calm voice does something for her, whatever it may be.

Maybe she just has to let it happen, though. There was a time when Brienne didn’t want to do most “men sports” either, so perhaps that is a parallel situation, and she just has to change her spots. Back then, it worked, too, after a while.

While Brienne always enjoyed fencing for all she can remember, she used to have an utter fear as a young girl reaching towards adolescence with fast strides to stick out even as more ungirly if she were to pursue un-girlish sports activities. Contrary to what seems to be common belief about her, Brienne actually fancied playing with dolls, she even liked dancing lessons her father required her to do since it is an old tradition on Tarth that you can stand your ground for the annual harvest feast, where a group dance is in order. She honestly liked it. Brienne even liked rhythmic gymnastics, if not for her height and backpains soon enough making it impossible for her to pursue that activity.

Thus, when the doctors told young Brienne that she should try weight training, among other things, she was shocked, though she never let that show. It took her quite some time to accustom to train with and around men, which wasn’t any easier than it was with the girls who’d laugh to her face for looking ridiculous in a tight, light blue bodysuit she wore for to the gymnastics, only ever aware of her lack of girlish, frail features once she compared her flat-chested, broad-hipped image in the mirror of the studio to those of the ballerina-like figurines whispering and laughing beside her.

The men weren’t any better, though, because they either felt intimidated or challenged to tease her, make fun of her, if they didn’t treat her like a guy and expected her to be constantly up for a physical fight, once she entered the realm of martial arts, fights she was not out for. Because Brienne knew very well that part of the reason why the guys wanted to compete with her was to _beat_ her, to teach her “a woman’s place,” and Brienne didn’t let them, refusing to just pet their fragile egos.

However, no matter the sorrows it gave her, Brienne eventually learned to appreciate sports, even find a way of appreciating to bypass cutting glances and smiley comments from women, and a way of handling most guys to the point that she could work with them without constantly swaying back and forth between wanting to punch them or feeling inadequate because of them.

And that only ever happened once she let it happen, once Brienne allowed herself to block out everything that bugged her, to focus on the merits the activities gave her.

Though, no matter Brienne’s trying to convince herself that this is doing her any favors, she just cannot grasp how breathing another way is going to help her backpains, as compared to the pains it gives her to look at that man’s handsome face, grinning at her as though he just won a contest.

_In any case… where were we? Oh, right, the arts of breathing._

Brienne lets her gaze drift to the ceiling, because there is no way that she is going to close her eyes while he is anywhere near her, one cannot be careful enough, and tries to focus on the “task.”

What is she supposed to note about her breathing anyway?

_Air goes in, air goes out. Repeat the process._

She could likely dig up her knowledge on how the oxygen is metabolized – Brienne was always very attentive in biology class – however, she dares to doubt that this is the plan here, really.

Brienne sucks in another deep breath. Is there any change? Is it how she normally breathes? Brienne has no clue. And how should she? Brienne never paid particular attention to that matter, really. She stopped caring about flaring nostrils and puffing out air long time ago, as opposed to a past self of hers who didn’t want to appear like an animal at times.

The young woman dares to steal a glance at Jaime, who is surprisingly silent ever since he gave her the last instructions. His features are perfectly relaxed, his gaze focused on her stomach, rising and falling with every intake of air, but without staring at it, really. Even his hair looks laid-back.

_Damn him._

Brienne shifts a bit as she exhales, wrinkling her nose. _Yeah_ , maybe she is about as much of a yoga person as she is a hypno-person. Perhaps that’s just really not her thing, if she can’t even figure out what her breathing is supposed to tell her.

At some point Brienne waits for him to ask her if she figured it out by now, to tell her with a grin what it actually is, but nothing comes.

After another inhalation, she speaks up, “This is not working.”

Jaime snaps his head around to her as Brienne attempts to sit up, mentally going through options of how to phrase her termination of the services this gym provides. However, before Brienne can make even an attempt to rise, Jaime’s left hand wandered from her wrist to her shoulder, gently holding her down. “Nah-uh, we are not going anywhere just yet.”

“Excuse me?” Brienne blurts out.

He doesn’t get to tell her what to do. If Brienne wants to leave, then so she will. She has no trouble paying for a membership longer than she uses the services, she signed up after all, and money is apparently no problem for her, but Brienne shall be damned if this laid-back, smugly smiling, with perfectly mussed-up hair yogi in way too tight muscle shirt to _her_ liking, thinks he gets to control her in that way.

Jaime already made that mistake back at the convention. If he didn’t learn that lesson by now, then that is hardly Brienne’s problem.

“Before we break up the whole thing and you flee from the scene, since I assume that this is what you are currently mentally debating on, we may want to do some causal investigation,” Jaime argues, leaving Brienne even more irritated, because he rightly predicted just what was going through her head moments ago.

“Causal investigation?” she huffs, trying her best not to let on that he caught her off-guard right there.

Jaime looks at her. “Well, what is the problem that you want to jump up and make a run for it?”

“Would you be so kind to remove your hand.”

“Will you make a run for it?”

“I am no animal,” Brienne retorts.

“I _am_ aware. But that doesn’t mean you won’t make a leap for it. So?”

“Fine. Just put your hand away.”

And so he does, much to Brienne’s relief. “Done. So now, what’s the matter here? You did fine a couple of minutes ago.”

“I don’t realize anything. _Sorry_. Seems like I’m incapable of anything of that sort beyond rolling my tongue and nodding my head. So… doesn't this just prove that I am not supposed to be doing this? If that is already beyond me?” Brienne replies.

She watches Jaime as he leans back slightly, scratching the back of his head with a grimace. “My, my, I didn’t think you’d give up that easily. I took you to be too stubborn to even consider that for only just a second.”

“I just don’t want to waste anyone’s time,” Brienne grumbles.

She never gives up, but Brienne also learned over the course of her work experience that sometimes you are better off not tilting at windmills.

_And yoga may well be my personal windmill._

“We agreed on an hour, so we still have some minutes left,” Jaime argues, unimpressed. Brienne lets out a weary sigh. “I’m just saying that maybe I am not made of the stuff it takes to do… yoga.”

Jaime frowns at her in turn. “You have a body that is movable, you are alive, that means you can do yoga.”

“Well, _despite that_ , I have no clue what my body is supposed to tell me as I breathe in and out,” Brienne insists. “So _unless_ you tell me the answer at some point, we are going to be treading the same murky waters for a very long time. And that doesn’t sound very productive to me, or does it to you?”

To her surprise _and annoyance_ , Jaime only rewards her with yet another easy sort of smile.

_As though this was a joking matter!_

Because this isn’t funny in Brienne’s opinion, not at all.

_I never should have agreed to this!_

“I’ve been there as well,” Jaime goes on to say, much to Brienne’s shock. “Back when my first yoga teacher told me that I was breathing the wrong way, I threw a fit, so if you believe that this makes you unable of practicing yoga, just let me assure you that this is far from the truth.”

“I have a hard time believing that you threw a fit in front of anyone,” she snorts.

 _He is probably making this up anyway, which is very cheap of him_ , she may add.

“Oh, you can trust me in this. I did. I got up, told him to fuck off, and went,” Jaime argues, gesturing with his left hand.

“But you returned,” Brienne argues.

Jaime chuckles, “Reluctantly so.”

“And you are not just telling me that story so that I can relate to it and feel better about myself?” Brienne asks, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Why would I do that?” Jaime replies, a frown spreading across his features, and if Brienne didn’t know he was a gifted actor – she got some proof for that already during the convention – she would be inclined to believe that his irritation is genuine.

“You are a businessman. That is oftentimes part of the job, establishing a common ground to enter a discussion, relating to customers to give them a feeling of familiarity. I read the handbooks, too,” she tells him with a blank expression. Jaime rolls his eyes, running his fingers through his hair. “Oh, Gods, don’t remind me of those. I already hated them back at college.”

Brienne rolls her broad shoulders slightly. “I’m just saying.”

“That story is as true as it gets,” he insists.

“For that you were _oh so_ reluctant, you seem to have taken up on the Yoga Faith.”

He replies simply, “I changed my mind.”

“ _Right_.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“I have no reason to believe you,” Brienne argues.

“Is it still about that that one time I put up an act at Riverrun? Oh Seven Hells, I was trying to be funny,” Jaime huffs, rolling his eyes.

“Careful now, or else you get cross-eyed,” Brienne tells him, before she goes on to add, “And speaking of which, I didn't find it funny to have you pretend for thirty minutes straight that you had locked yourself out, that the staff wasn’t willing to give you a spare key, were basically ‘ _homeless_ ,’ to quote you, only to have you lounging on my bed and emptying whatever was in the mini-bar.”

“I honestly didn’t think you’d buy it for so long,” he laughs.

“In case it still went without your notice, I am not particularly good at reading people,” she grumbles, to which he agrees with a nod of his head, “Yeah, makes sense that this was why you bought into my other bluff at one of the simulations we did the next day.”

“Which proves my point – why would I believe you much of anything?”

“I swear it by the Old Gods and the New?”

“I thought you are an atheist?”

“The Gods of Yoga?”

“Not very convincing, I fear.”

“You will have to take my word for it, then. Because it’s the truth I am telling you, believe it now or not. I walked out, never wanted to come back, and I damned yoga or anything related to it for a very, very long time,” Jaime argues, his tone surprisingly sincere this time.

And even if Brienne won’t let him on, she tends to believe that expression of his.

“See, even stubborn creatures like you and I can have a change of heart every once in a while,” Jaime goes on to say. “We are just too damn bullheaded to let the change happen until we or someone else forces us.”

“Which is to say that you will force me?” Brienne huffs. He laughs. “I will do what is necessary.”

“Now, that’s what I call devotion,” she snorts, doing her best to sound as unimpressed as possible.

“Oh, you’d have _no_ idea. So, to come back to the topic on-hand here. You shouldn’t worry about getting something right or wrong at this point. Once we get to actual yoga poses, I will correct your posture if something’s off, but other than that, it's at the core, about you getting a better consciousness of your body. This is not about who learns the fastest or does the best Lotus seat, or you name it, it’s about you regaining that consciousness for your body that you seem to lack in some aspects.”

“Well, I have a body. How more conscious do I have to be of it?” Brienne blurts out. For that she normally keeps comments of that sort to herself, Jaime seems to provoke just those reactions out of her with ease.

_How does Father always say? Some people will bring out the best in you. Some will bright out the worst._

And the state of affairs right now is that Jaime Lannister tends to bring out the worst in her.

“We will need a lot of practice, I fear,” Jaime replies.

“As I said…,” Brienne means to say, but he interrupts her, “But we will manage.”

“You think?” she asks now almost hesitantly. Normally, that would have been the moment most trainers would just give her an eyeroll and tell her to pull herself together.

In general, Brienne is mostly accustomed to people growing tired of her. Needless to mention that she grows equally tired of most people at rapid speed the same way. So that is the least of her concerns, but to have here someone who apparently wants to keep doing even when she is being reluctant about it?

_That is definitely something new for a change._

And while Brienne is not yet certain if that change is for better or worse, she has to recognize that there are apparently a lot of new things revolving around this gym, and the yoga trainer with smug grin in particular.

“Oh, once I have set my eyes on something, I don’t stop until I have achieved my goals. And let’s be real, if I make you see some sense in the _Faith of Yoga_ , then I can teach _anyone_ yoga,” Jaime argues with a grin. “Think about it.”

And Brienne is bound to admit, “That might be true.”

“See?” he laughs. “So I consider this as much of a challenge as you probably do.”

“Well, that still doesn't solve the problem that I have absolutely no clue what my breathing is supposed to be telling me,” Brienne insists.

Because no matter how promising all of that may sound, if this proves to be unproductive, Brienne knows better than to waste her valuable time – or Jaime’s for that matter – on something that won't bring either one forward in any way.

“Maybe try to compare it to the _Sitali_ breathing technique?” Jaime suggests. “Can you notice any differences at this point, perhaps?”

“You could have asked that from the beginning?” Brienne grounds out.

_Because then I could have paid attention to that while doing the stupid breathing technique while having him hold my wrist for some damned reason!_

This reminds her way too much of writing essays at school, only to get a grade sheet, telling her that she should have added this or that, even though the task itself did not specifically ask for it.

“I _could_ have, yes,” he snorts, amused and full of himself.

Brienne narrows her eyes at him.

“Maybe give it another try, see if there are any noticeable differences, hm?” he offers.

Brienne sighs, leaning her head back down, trying to focus.

Air goes in, air goes out… here we go again! What do we do now? Maybe go through from head to toe?

That may be reasonable enough – cataloging things is something within Brienne’s capacities the last time she checked.

So, what is there to catalog?

For one, it’s no cooling breath. She is feeling hot, though that is likely owed to her agitation.

The rest seems rather familiar. Safe for her stomach, which is pretty tensed. While Brienne tends to account that to Jaime having grabbed her wrist there for no damned reason whatsoever, her stomach doesn’t raise as much as it did during the first task. She can feel her muscles flex on every intake of air as her stomach starts to press against the back of her hand.

“I don’t know, my stomach doesn’t rise as much as it did during the other task… I guess.”

“See? You can do it after all. And yes, that is what I see, too. That is because you breathe rather shallowly and more in the chest than in the stomach.”

“And that makes me tensed?”

“Partly.”

“How do I stop that?”

“We will have to see what works for you. Want to try something?”

“If that brings me anywhere close to being done, sure, go ahead.”

“Alright, I want you to take those deep breaths again. Once you feel rather relaxed, I want you to make a small pause after each intake and outtake of air, so hold the air in for a second or so.”

“Alright.”

Brienne starts to breathe deeply again, trying to focus on her stomach, which only seems to tense up now that she called attention to it.

Way to go.

She sucks in an even deeper breath and holds it for a second, as Jaime instructed, before blowing it out as slowly as she can, holding it another second, before continuing the process.

And to Brienne’s surprise, the muscles in her stomach do actually feel less tensed after a few tries.

“Very good, now, if you can, I want you to expand your abdomen upon inhale and contract it upon exhale.”

Brienne frowns, but tries to follow through with it despite her irritation. It takes her a few tries to feel like she is doing it as she is supposed to, but once Brienne settled into a rhythm, she can feel her stomach easing once she is no longer expanding or contracting it.

“What you may notice at this point is the natural movement of your diaphragm and generally that you get to ease a bit more. Just keep doing it like that for a few more tries,” Jaime coaches her through it, and Brienne would like to snap something, but then doesn’t, because there is something rather pleasant about that moment where there is no tension in her stomach.

While she can still feel her back probing from the other side, the sensation of relaxation of her abdominal muscles overrides it, if only for mere moments.

“That was very good.”

“What did I say about praising me for breathing?”

“What? A few moments ago, you wanted to go because you couldn’t do it, to quote you,” he snorts.

“You are frustrating me,” Brienne sighs, rolling her eyes.

Jaime laughs. “And you me. So I suppose we complement each other quite well.”

“What do we do next?” Brienne questions, already meaning to sit up, but Jaime’s let already hovers over her sternum, ready to push her back down if she were to raise her upper body.

“You just keep your dour head on the mat and do nothing else,” he tells her. Brienne narrows her eyes at him. “What’s that supposed to mean? I thought you were taking me through the breathing techniques so we can move on to the actual tasks next.”

“And here we go again,” Jaime puffs, making a face.

“ _You_ said that.”

“ _I_ said that I am teaching you breathing techniques today, I did that, two in number,” Jaime comments. “ _Now_ you are supposed to calm down, and after that I will send you home. That was enough for a day.”

“We didn’t even do anything,” Brienne insists.

“You rolled your tongue, you nodded, and you realized that you flex your stomach too much, which prevents you from taking deep breaths meant to help you ease. I call that a good progression for the first session,” Jaime argues. “Though you do tend to destroy it right now by being stubborn as ever and not even finding the calm to just lay still for a couple of minutes.”

“I can also…,” she means to say, but Jaime interrupts her, “No.”

“You didn't even know what I was going to say.”

“I am taking an educated guess. So no. You just lay still until I tell you that you can move again.”

“Is that why you scheduled an hour?” Brienne questions, narrowing her eyes at him once more.

“I had a hunch, so yeah,” he laughs.

Brienne mumbles some incoherent curses to herself as she tries to keep her breath even for Jaime to be satisfied enough to let her go.

Which is ridiculous in itself because he shouldn’t get to tell me what to do!

Brienne can hear him stand up. “You keep that position until I tell you to stop.”

“You are repeating yourself.”

She is surprised when he suddenly sees him above her, having swung one long leg across her. “I think that’s not going to get any better, so I will now give you one little extra trick to stand up more comfortably before you get to flee.”

“I don’t need…,” Brienne means to say, but Jaime is having none of it, “Yes you do. So now, I want you to roll on your stomach slowly while keeping your back relaxed. I’ll help you with that. We will do more of that in the following sessions. Regard it as a preview.”

Brienne grimaces, but then starts to rotate her body anyway, trying her best not to flinch when Jaime places his palm slightly above the non-existent curve of her hip as she flips over onto her stomach.

“Now, stretch out your arms to the front, close to your head,” Jaime goes on, and Brienne simply follows through, wanting to get out of here as fast as possible. And so long he resists, Brienne knows by now, he will keep going, if only to annoy her.

“And now I want you to slowly push back, using your hands for stability so that your hip comes closer to your feet. No worries, I will guide you.”

“I got it.”

“And I got you, so go.”

Brienne rolls her eyes as she starts to maneuver backwards. Jaime stops her with his palm on her lower back from sitting up, which only makes her huff in frustration.

“I thought that was the next step.”

“We take one at a time, and I have to move position,” Jaime says, already rotating to come to stand in front of her. “And here I am. So now, take my hands, and then we will slowly straighten up to stand.”

“For real?”

“For real.”

Brienne reluctantly takes a hold of Jaime’s extended wrists, still rather surprised when he almost effortlessly helps her stand. Brienne lets go of him at once.

“So, you tell me, that was less painful than working it with your back, right?”

“Admittedly.”

“Good. We will work on that the next time. I just wanted to be sure not to give your back a jolt after we finally managed to relax a bit,” Jaime says with a grin.

Brienne wrinkles her nose. “Thank… you… So that’s it for the day?”

“That’s it.”

“Alright, then.”

“I will see you for our next meeting.”

“You know the time still?” Brienne questions with the hint of a smile.

“I have no clue, but Ros put you down,” he laughs. “So, if you find the time, try to practice the breathing techniques at home.”

“Okay. Anything else?” she asks, to which Jaime answers, “Don’t read up on yoga more than you did anyway.”

“… Fine,” Brienne sighs.

_Might be for the better after all._

“Good, the articles are crap anyway, trust me.”

“Well, then… have a good day.”

“ _Namaste_ ,” Jaime chuckles, doing his usual pose again.

Brienne nods curtly before heading out at once, whooshing out the door and down the hallway leading towards the changing rooms, glad for it that Ros is preoccupied with something at the computer as she walks away.

Jaime, meanwhile, strolls out of the room, whistling softly as he waddles over to Ros’ desk by the bar. He leans over the wooden surface with a grin, catching a last glimpse as the tall, blonde woman basically _dives_ into the changing room.

“So? How did the first session go?” Ros asks with a grin, her eyes fixed on the computer.

“She is more reluctant than I dared to believe possible. And I already set the bar high,” Jaime snorts, amused.

“But she will stick around?” the redhaired woman questions, making a few mouse clicks.

“Oh, I am most certain of that,” Jaime tells her with a grin, running his long fingers through his hair.

“How comes?”

“Well, she is about as reluctant as she is stubborn. And stubborn people don’t give up. _Ever_.”

“As you know from experience,” Ros chuckles.

“Indeed.”

“Kale smoothie?”

Jaime shakes his head. “No way in the Seven Hells.”

“Why does no one want my kale smoothies?” Ros mewls, making a face. 

“Because most of us want to stay alive. And never forget, if I die, you’ll have to find yourself a new yogi to take over your classes.”

“And as we all know, you are _so_ irreplaceable.”

“Absolutely. Who else would be able to handle her, huh?” Jaime chuckles. 

“Well, we have yet to see if you are going to be successful," she points out to him. 

“A Lannister always pays his debts, so _of course_ I will be successful.”

“Did you have to say that just now?” Ros grunts, rolling her eyes at him. 

He shrugs. “You asked.”

“Can I convince you of a Dornish plum smoothie by any chance? They just arrived this morning!”

“No.”

“C’mon.”

“ _No_. I still have classes later on," Jaime argues. "I can’t afford to have abdominal cramps.”

“You have no classes today anymore," Ros argues in a sing-song, her eyes glued to the screen. 

“Really?” Jaime makes a face. 

She shrugs. “You need a calendar. Or someone to organize your life for you. You are a mess.”

“What? _You_ organize that stuff for me.”

“As I said, you are a mess, Mr. Yoga. Maybe you should go into her training for those matters. She seems to know how to schedule life," Ros tells him. "So, a green smoothie by any chance?”

“Oh Seven Hells. If she isn't going to be the death of me, you will be, without a doubt. You and your bloody smoothies."


End file.
